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The United States federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit. For tax year 2007, a claimant with one qualifying child can receive a maximum credit of $2,853. For two or more qualifying children, the maximum credit is $4,716. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings can also claim a child as their qualifying child provided they shared residence with the child for more than six months of the tax year. However, in tie-breaker situations in which more than one filer claims the same child, priority will be given to the parent. A foster child also counts provided the child has been officially placed by an agency or court. There is a much more modest EIC for persons and couples without children that reaches a maximum of $428.

A qualifying child can be up to and including age 18 at the end of the tax year, up to and including age 23 if classified as a full-time student for one long semester or equivalent, or any age if classified as 'totally disabled' for the tax year.

Enacted in 1975, the initially modest EIC has been expanded by tax legislation on a number of occasions, including the more widely-publicized tax acts of 1986, 1990, 1993, and 2001, regardless of whether the act in general raised taxes (1990, 1993), lowered taxes (2001), or eliminated other deductions and credits (1986). Today, the EITC is one of the largest anti-poverty tools in the United States (despite the fact that most income measures, including the poverty rate, do not account for the credit), and enjoys broad bipartisan support.

Other countries with programs similar to the EITC include the United Kingdom (see: working tax credit), Canada (see: working income tax benefit), Ireland, New Zealand, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France and the Netherlands. In some cases, these are small (the maximum EITC in Finland is 290 euros), but others are larger than the U.S. credit (the UK's working tax credit is worth up to 6150 Euros).

In the United States as of tax year 2006, some 20 states and the District of Columbia had their own EICs. These state plans generally mimic the federal structure on a smaller scale, with individuals receiving a state credit equal to a fixed percentage—generally between 15 and 30 percent—of what they are eligible to receive from the federal credit. A few small local EICs have been enacted in San Francisco, New York City, and Montgomery County, Maryland.

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