The recently passed House reconciliation bill (the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) expands the child tax credit (CTC) for many families with moderate to higher incomes. At the same time, it imposes a new restriction that would, according to Congress’s official tax estimators, exclude 2 million children with Social Security Numbers (SSNs), most of whom are US citizens, from receiving the credit. 

The CTC is currently worth up to $2,000 per child under 17. The legislation would boost that amount to $2,500 until 2028. This provision has bipartisan support; the CTC is a proven policy for reducing poverty and improving children’s well-being. 

But the bill would render ineligible many American children who currently receive the credit. It does so by instituting a new requirement: each adult taxpayer, and their spouse, must have a valid SSN for the family to claim the credit, in addition to fulfilling various other eligibility requirements. In practice, this would mean mixed-status families, including those with US citizen children, would no longer be eligible for the CTC.

The bill would also make permanent the requirement that qualifying children must have SSNs, a rule that was temporarily enacted under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and that is otherwise set to expire at the end of 2025. 

This will likely worsen children’s well-being and leave their communities worse off. It will also deeply impact immigrant families, who are already excluded from some basic needs programs. 

What is the SSN requirement and who does it affect? 

When filing their tax returns, taxpayers generally must provide a taxpayer ID for everyone listed on the return.

For US citizens, that taxpayer ID is their SSN. Some non-citizens also use SSNs, including legal permanent residents (“green card holders”) and immigrants legally allowed to work in the United States on a temporary basis (and in some cases, their family members). These SSNs, sometimes called “work-authorized SSNs”, are the vast majority of SSNs issued to non-citizens.

Taxpayers who are not eligible to receive an SSN, which includes undocumented immigrants, instead are eligible to use an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) when filing their return and complying with federal tax laws. 

The population using ITINs is large and varied. It includes undocumented immigrants, as well as lawfully present survivors of domestic violence, students, and dependents of some lawfully present and temporary workers on visas.

For example, the spouse or child of an H1-B visa holder (an academic researcher from Europe, for example) is not eligible for an SSN, and instead may use an ITIN to fulfill their tax obligations and be claimed as dependents. Nearly six million individuals held active ITINs in December 2022.

Adults with ITINs would be barred from claiming the CTC 

Under current law, the CTC can be claimed by a parent (or certain other qualifying relatives) for children who meet various eligibility rules, including the TCJA-imposed, temporary rule of having an SSN.

Most adults in the US have SSNs, and some others file taxes with an ITIN. A married couple can claim the credit even if one or both of them file taxes with an ITIN, as long as their qualifying child has an SSN.

The House bill would change that. Not just the child, but also the taxpayer (and their spouse if they have one) would each need SSNs. This would effectively bar mixed-status families from claiming the CTC, even if their children are US citizens. Married couples would generally not be able to file separately to bypass the rule. 

As a result, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that approximately 2 million children with SSNs would be denied the CTC. Independent estimates suggest families that would lose out on the CTC would be spread across the country, with sizable numbers in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas. 

The new requirement for adults follows a broader trend. Similar SSN rules have been added in other parts of the GOP tax bill, such as for claiming higher education tax credits. The proposal would also cut Medicaid funding for states that cover undocumented immigrants through that program. 

Congress should consider the unintended and difficult consequences from this exclusion 

The SSN requirements may aim to limit costs by cutting benefits for immigrant families, but similar efforts in the past have had unintended consequences: in 2008, for example, an SSN requirement for claiming the 2008 recovery rebates initially left out overseas military members with foreign spouses until Congress intervened. 

In the short term, dropping mixed-status families from the nation’s basic needs programs would reduce the costs of the CTC by about $40 billion over 10 years. But it would also have downstream consequences on children’ s well-being, including the capacity of their families to afford nutrition, education, and health care – spending that has been shown to also boost communities.

Dollars saved today by limiting the CTC may leave children and their communities worse off tomorrow. As the US Senate considers the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they could consider modifications to the CTC changes that the US House of Representatives passed, so that American children are not left out of one of the nation’s most critical programs.