13 — Total Credits Before Limit Updated for tax year 2025

What this line means

The sum of the child tax credit after phaseout (line 10) and the credit for other dependents (line 12), minus any additional phaseout reduction that applies to the other dependents credit. This is the total combined credit before comparing it to your actual tax liability. The next step determines how much of this credit you can actually use.

Does this apply to you?

• You have qualifying children, other dependents, or both
• You are computing the combined credit before applying the tax liability limit

Easy to overlook

This number can be larger than your tax bill Your combined credits might exceed the tax you owe. When that happens, the excess child tax credit portion can become refundable through the additional child tax credit (lines 15-24). The excess credit for other dependents is lost — it cannot be refunded or carried forward. ¹ [SOURCE: IRS Schedule 8812 instructions — line 13 computation]

The phaseout has already been applied at this point Line 13 reflects credits after the income-based phaseout. Filers sometimes try to apply the phaseout again when comparing to tax liability, but it has already been factored in. The only remaining limit is the tax liability itself on line 14a. ² [SOURCE: IRC Section 24 — combined credit calculation]

Watch out for this

Adding line 6 and line 12 instead of line 10 and line 12. Line 6 is the credit before phaseout; line 10 is after phaseout. Using line 6 overstates the combined credit by ignoring the income-based reduction.

Related lines on your return

• Line 10 — Schedule 8812 — Credit after phaseout; one component of this total
• Line 12 — Schedule 8812 — Credit for other dependents; the other component
• Line 14a — Schedule 8812 — Tax liability limit; compared against this total