FILING STATUS & FEES

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You should file as Single if on December 31, 2024 you were unmarried, legally separated, or divorced. If you have a child or qualifying person who lives with you, you may qualify as a Head of Household, which will usually give you a larger refund. 

If you aren't married and had your child or a relative living with you for more than half of the year, you can file as Head of Household. The Head of Household filing status will usually give you a larger refund than using the Single filing status because the Head of Household filing status gets a higher standard deduction and lower tax rates than the Single filing status. 

Head of Household status is for unmarried people who paid over half the cost of keeping up a home for a qualifying person, such as your child who lived with you. The qualifying person must have lived with you for more than half of the year. A qualifying person is considered to live with you even during temporary absences such as school, vacation, business, medical care, military service, or detention in a juvenile facility. 

If the qualifying person is your parent whom you can claim as a dependent, your parent doesn't have to live with you in your home. For example, if you're paying more than half the costs of your mom's home or rest home and she is a dependent on your tax return, you may be able to file under Head of Household even if your mom doesn't live with you. 

If you're divorced and your child lives with you for more than half of the year and you meet all the other rules for claiming the Head of Household filing status, you can claim the Head of Household filing status even if your ex-spouse is claiming your child as a dependent on his or her tax return. 

The qualifying person needs to be a relative. You can't file under Head of Household for an unrelated person such as a girlfriend or roommate even if you can claim the unrelated person as a dependent on your tax return. 

You can file as Married Filing Jointly if any of the following apply:

• You were married as of December 31, 2024, even if you didn't live with your spouse at the end of 2024.
• Your spouse died in 2024, and you didn't remarry in 2024.
• Your spouse died in 2025 before filing a 2024 return.

You're considered married unless you're legally separated or divorced before the end of 2024.

If you're married and file a separate return, you'll usually pay more tax than if you use another filing status that you qualify for. If you file a separate return, you can't take the student loan interest deduction or education credits, and you'll only be able to take the Earned Income Credit and Child Care Credit in limited circumstances. You also can't take the Standard Deduction if your spouse itemizes deductions. It's rare for Married Filing Separately to give you more refund than Married Filing Jointly. However, if you itemize your deductions and one spouse has a large amount of medical expenses or casualty losses, you may get more overall refund by filing separate returns.  

You may file as a Qualifying Surviving Spouse if all of the following apply:

1. Your spouse died in 2022 or 2023 and you didn't remarry in 2024.
2. You have a child, adopted child, or stepchild who qualifies.
3. This child lived in your home for all of 2024. Temporary absences, such as for school, vacation, or medical care, count as time lived in the home.
4. You paid over half the cost of keeping up your home.
5. You could have filed a joint return the year s/he died.

If your spouse died in 2024, file as Married Filing Jointly.