Reviewed by: MyTaxRebate Team | Last updated: 2026-02-26 | Checked against Revenue TDM Part 15-01-41.
Quick Answer
To qualify for the SPCCC, you must satisfy four conditions simultaneously in the tax year: (1) you must be single, widowed, separated, or have a dissolved civil partnership; (2) you must have a qualifying child residing with you; (3) you must be the child's principal carer — the person the child primarily lives with; and (4) you must not be cohabiting as a couple at any point during the year. If you can confirm all four, there is a strong basis for a claim. If any one is uncertain, that is the area to investigate before submitting.
What this page covers
- The four SPCCC qualification questions
- Step 1: Personal status — single, widowed, or separated for the full year
- Step 2: Qualifying child — age, education, and residence with you
- Step 3: Principal carer — the person the child primarily lives with
- Step 4: Disqualifying factors — cohabitation and other blockers
- What each answer means for your eligibility
- Why a clear yes on all four gives you a strong basis to proceed with a claim
- Why a borderline or uncertain answer at any step needs specific investigation
- How a prior rejection maps to one of the four steps and how to address it
- Next steps based on your decision path
- What to do if all four conditions are clearly confirmed
- How to handle uncertainty at any specific step before submitting
- When to stop self-assessing and use a professional eligibility review
SPCCC Key Facts
- SPCCC requires four conditions to be met simultaneously throughout the full tax year.
- Personal status: you must be single, widowed, separated, or party to a dissolved civil partnership for the tax year.
- Qualifying child: the child must be under 18 at the start of the tax year, or over 18 but in full-time education or permanently incapacitated.
- Principal carer: you must be the person the child primarily resides with — not simply an active or involved parent.
- Disqualifying factor: cohabiting as a couple at any point during the year removes entitlement for the entire year.
- A borderline or uncertain answer at any single step is a signal to investigate that specific condition before submitting.
Step 1: Are You a Qualifying Individual?
The first SPCCC condition is about your personal status. You must be, for the full tax year, in one of the following positions: single; widowed or a surviving civil partner; separated from a spouse; divorced; or party to a civil partnership that has been dissolved. If you are married and living with your spouse, you do not qualify, regardless of the other circumstances.
It is important to note that "separated" in this context means legally or formally separated, or living apart from a spouse in a genuine separation arrangement. The Revenue rules look at the factual position, not just a stated intention to separate. If your status changed during the tax year — for example, you separated in June — the year needs to be assessed carefully to determine from which point, if any, the qualifying condition was met. See our SPCCC change of circumstances guide before submitting any claim that covers a year in which your personal status changed.
If your status changed during the year, the year is best reviewed professionally before claiming.
Step 2: Is There a Qualifying Child?
The second condition is that a qualifying child must reside with you. A qualifying child is a child who was under 18 at the start of the tax year, or who is over 18 but is in full-time education or is permanently incapacitated. The child can be your own child, an adopted child, or a child you have taken into your care.
The child must reside with you — meaning your home must be the child's primary residence for the tax year. A child who visits you regularly but whose primary home is elsewhere does not make you the principal carer for SPCCC purposes. The full eligibility conditions — including the principal-carer and qualifying-child rules — are explained in detail in our SPCCC eligibility guide.
For a child who turns 18 during the tax year, check whether they are in full-time education at that point. If they are, the qualifying period for that tax year may extend beyond their 18th birthday. If they are not in education or training, the qualifying period may end at the birthday, and this affects whether the credit can be claimed for the full year.
Step 3: Are You the Principal Carer?
Even if a qualifying child resides with you, you must also be the principal carer — the person the child primarily lives with. In a clear primary-residence situation where the child lives with you and visits the other parent, this is straightforward. In a shared-custody situation where the child splits time equally between two homes, the principal carer determination depends on which address is the child's official primary residence for school, GP, and public record purposes.
Only one person can be the principal carer for SPCCC purposes in any given year. See our guide to SPCCC with shared custody for a detailed explanation of how this determination is made and what evidence is most persuasive when two parents' homes are both actively used by the child.
The principal carer condition is assessed on the facts of the tax year being claimed, not on arrangements agreed in later years. If the care arrangement changed during the year in question, each period needs to be assessed on its own facts.
Step 4: Are There Any Disqualifying Factors?
The fourth condition is a negative one: you must not be cohabiting as a couple during the tax year. Cohabitation in this context means living together with a partner in a domestic partnership arrangement. Our guide to SPCCC and cohabiting couples explains precisely what Revenue counts as cohabitation and common misunderstandings about this rule — including why sharing accommodation with a non-partner adult does not disqualify the credit.
Other disqualifying factors include being married and not separated from your spouse, or having a qualifying child who ceases to meet the age and education conditions during the year. The child turning 18 and leaving full-time education or training removes the qualifying-child status from that point, which may affect the claim for the tax year in which this change occurs.
If you are uncertain whether a particular arrangement constitutes cohabitation for Revenue purposes, professional advice before claiming is the safest approach. The Revenue rules on what counts as cohabitation are specific, and the consequences of an incorrect assessment are significant in both directions.
What Your Result Means and What to Do Next
If you have answered yes to all four conditions — you are a qualifying individual, there is a qualifying child residing with you, you are the principal carer, and there are no disqualifying factors — you have a strong basis for an SPCCC claim. The next step is to gather the evidence that supports each of these conditions for each tax year you intend to claim.
If one or more conditions are uncertain, that uncertainty is the area to resolve before submitting. An uncertain answer about any condition is a potential refusal risk. A professional review of the specific uncertain element — rather than submitting and hoping — is the most efficient way to handle borderline cases.
If you have previously been refused the SPCCC and are revisiting your eligibility through this decision tree, use the step where you answered differently to identify whether the original refusal was based on a genuine ineligibility or an evidence gap. If the answer is an evidence gap, the claim may be recoverable through the Revenue review process.
Decision-path scenarios
Clear yes on all four conditions
A separated mother with full residential care of her two children answered yes at every step: separated for the full year, two qualifying children under 18 living with her as primary residence, confirmed as the principal carer, and not cohabiting at any point during the year. All conditions were met and she was entitled to claim the SPCCC for each year in her claim period. Her evidence — school enrolment, GP records, and a consistent Revenue address record — fully supported the claim.
Borderline case at Step 4: brief cohabitation during the year
A claimant was single for most of the year and met conditions one through three clearly. However, they had begun living with a new partner in November of the tax year. That brief period of cohabitation at Step 4 removed the credit for the entire year under the Revenue rules. They were not entitled to claim for that year but could claim for all years prior to the cohabitation and for subsequent years once the arrangement ended.
Uncertainty at Step 3: shared care with no clear primary residence
A father in a shared-custody arrangement was unsure whether he or the child's mother was the principal carer, as the child spent roughly equal time at both homes. A review of the official records — school enrolment, GP registration, and the family law order — showed the child's primary residence was registered at the mother's address. She was the correct primary SPCCC claimant. The father was able to claim via the relinquishment route in a subsequent year once the primary claimant formally agreed to the transfer.
Common mistakes to avoid
Treating this decision tree as a legal determination. This decision tree provides a practical framework based on Revenue's SPCCC conditions, but final entitlement depends on the specific facts of your case as assessed by Revenue. Use it as a structured starting point, not as a replacement for professional advice or a Revenue determination.
Answering based on how you want things to be rather than how they are. The decision tree is only useful if you answer based on the actual facts of the tax year in question. Answering optimistically — describing circumstances as you wish they were rather than as they were — will not prevent Revenue from identifying the correct position, and it increases the risk of a refusal that is harder to appeal.
Ignoring a borderline answer at any step. A "maybe" at any of the four steps is a signal to investigate that specific condition before submitting a claim, not to proceed and hope. Borderline cases that go unexamined before submission are the most common source of costly claims that should have been prepared differently.
When this may not apply
- Decision tree produces a confirmed no at any step. If the facts of the tax year clearly fail any of the four conditions — personal status, qualifying child, principal-carer role, or absence of cohabitation — the SPCCC entitlement does not exist for that year and submitting will not change that outcome.
- Facts of the tax year are too unclear to answer any step reliably. If household facts, residence patterns, or status circumstances for the claimed year are genuinely unknown or in dispute, answering the decision tree accurately is not possible. A professional review to establish the facts should precede any claim.
Related SPCCC guides
More SPCCC guides
Do not leave this to chance
If your SPCCC case has any complexity — shared custody, a rejected claim, backdated years, or household changes — the most reliable path is professional handling. We build, submit, and defend claims with a no-refund-no-fee model.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this decision tree legally definitive?
No. It is a structured, practical screening tool based on Revenue's published SPCCC conditions. Final entitlement is determined by Revenue based on the specific facts of your case. Use this as a starting point to identify which conditions you need to evidence more carefully, not as a substitute for a Revenue determination.
What should I do if I am borderline on any condition?
Identify precisely which condition is uncertain and investigate the specific facts before submitting any claim. For most borderline cases, gathering year-specific evidence for the uncertain condition is the next step. If the borderline is at Step 4 — cohabitation — professional advice before claiming is strongly recommended, as the consequences of a misjudgement are significant.
Can this decision tree help if I was denied the SPCCC before?
Yes. Work through each step based on the facts of the year in question and identify at which step the previous claim may have failed. If your answer at that step is now different — because you have better evidence or better understand the rules — there may be a basis for a review or appeal.
Official Revenue Guidance
For authoritative SPCCC rules, refer to Revenue Tax and Duty Manual Part 15-01-41. This is the primary source document that defines all eligibility conditions, the relinquishment process, and the technical rules governing the credit.