Head of Household

Head of household is the filing status for single parents and others who keep up a home for a relative. You can use it only if you pass all three tests for the year; fail any one and you file as single or, if you are married, jointly or separately. There is no income limit, so a high earner qualifies as readily as a low one. What matters is your marital status on December 31, who pays for the home, and who lives in it:

Being married on December 31 normally rules out head of household, but a spouse who has moved out can open it up. You are considered unmarried for this purpose if you file a separate return, you paid more than half the cost of keeping up your home for the year, your spouse didn’t live in the home at any time during the last six months of the year, your home was the main home of your child, stepchild or foster child for more than half the year, and you can claim that child as a dependent. You still meet the last test if the only reason you can’t claim the child is that you released the claim to the other parent.

This matters because the alternative is married filing separately, with its halved deduction, lost credits and the rule that you must itemize if your spouse does. A separated parent who qualifies as head of household gets the $24,150 standard deduction for 2026 whatever the other spouse does. The test is only for filing status: being considered unmarried here doesn’t make you unmarried for other purposes, such as the earned income credit.

A spouse who was a nonresident alien at any time during the year also leaves you considered unmarried, unless you choose to treat that spouse as a US resident. That spouse can’t be your qualifying person, so you still need someone else who is.

The differences sit in the lower tax brackets, but because every income climbs through those brackets first, filers at all income levels benefit. The standard deduction is $24,150 for 2026, $8,050 more than a single filer’s $16,100. The 10% bracket runs to $17,700 of taxable income instead of $12,400, and the 12% bracket to $67,450 instead of $50,400. From $105,700 up the head-of-household brackets match the single ones almost exactly. The 0% rate on long-term capital gains reaches $66,200 of taxable income, against $49,450 for a single filer.

Many thresholds are the same as for a single filer. The extra standard deduction for someone 65 or older or blind is $2,050 per condition, the net investment income tax still starts at $200,000 of modified AGI, the Roth IRA phase-out is still $153,000–$168,000, and IRMAA uses the single table. The Saver’s Credit sits in between, with income ceilings of $36,375, $39,375 and $60,375 for its three rates.

Head of household also stands apart from the qualifying surviving spouse status. A widowed parent with a dependent child uses the joint brackets for the two years after the death, then usually moves to head of household if the child still lives at home.

The cost test compares what you paid with the total cost of running the home for the year, not with your own income. Costs that count are rent, mortgage interest, property taxes, home insurance, repairs, utilities and food eaten in the home. Costs that don’t count are clothing, education, medical treatment, vacations, life insurance and transportation, along with the value of your own work around the house.

Money that arrives in someone else’s name belongs to that person. Social Security benefits paid for a child, for example, count as paid by the child, not by you, even when you deposit them and pay the bills. Bills paid directly by a parent, a partner or anyone else who shares the home count as their payments too, which is how a single parent living with relatives can fail the test despite a full-time job. Under proposed Treasury regulations, TANF and similar government payments you use to support the household count as support you provided. For a parent who lives elsewhere, the test applies to the parent’s own home, which can be a rest home.

Head of household is the only filing status covered by the paid-preparer due-diligence rules: preparers must check eligibility before claiming it for a client, as they must for the child tax credit and earned income credit, and face a penalty for each failure. The status is also judged afresh each year, so a household that qualified last year may not qualify after a move, a new partner or a child leaving home. Most errors come from these patterns: