Deducting Medical Expenses for Dependents: Kids, Parents, and Other Family Members (2025)

Most people know they can potentially deduct their own medical expenses — but what about costs you pay for your children, elderly parents, or other family members? The IRS has clear rules about whose medical expenses count, and the answer is more generous than many taxpayers realize. Here’s a complete guide to deducting medical expenses for dependents in 2025.

The Basic Rule: You Can Deduct Medical Expenses for Dependents

You can deduct medical expenses you paid for yourself, your spouse, and your dependents. The expenses all get combined and compared to the 7.5% AGI threshold together, which means a family with multiple people’s medical costs can more easily clear the floor than a single taxpayer with only their own expenses.

Who Counts as a Dependent for Medical Expense Purposes?

The IRS uses two definitions of “dependent” — qualifying child and qualifying relative — and medical expenses for either type can be included in your deduction. However, there’s an important twist for medical expenses specifically: someone doesn’t have to be claimed as a dependent on your tax return to allow you to deduct their medical expenses. They just need to have qualified as your dependent at the time the medical services were provided or the expenses were paid.

This matters in two practical situations. First, if you’re divorced and you and your ex alternate claiming your child as a dependent, the parent who pays the child’s medical expenses can deduct them — even in years when the other parent claims the dependency exemption. Second, if a parent qualifies as your dependent based on income rules but you choose not to claim them, you can still deduct their medical costs you paid.

Medical Expenses for Children

If you have qualifying children — generally children under 19, or under 24 if full-time students — you can include their medical expenses in your deduction. This covers a wide range of costs:

Doctor visits, urgent care, and emergency room bills
Prescription medications for your children
Orthodontic work and dental care
Vision care, glasses, and contact lenses
Therapy and mental health treatment — including therapy for ADHD, anxiety, depression, or developmental issues
Speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy
Special education costs if the school’s primary reason for existence is to help children with learning disabilities (this is a meaningful but often overlooked deduction)
Medical equipment prescribed for your child’s condition

Medical Expenses for Elderly Parents

If you pay medical expenses for an elderly parent who qualifies as your dependent, those costs can be included in your medical expense deduction. For a parent to qualify as your dependent (a “qualifying relative”), they generally must:

Have gross income below the exemption amount for the year (in 2025, $5,050)
Receive more than half of their financial support from you
Not file a joint return with a spouse

Common medical expenses for elderly parents that you might be paying include: nursing home costs (if the primary reason is medical care), in-home nursing care, prescription drugs, assisted living facility costs (if medical care is the primary reason), and transportation to medical appointments.

Nursing Home and Long-Term Care Costs for a Parent

This is a big one. If you’re paying for a parent’s nursing home or assisted living, the deductibility depends on the primary reason for the placement. If the primary reason your parent is in the facility is medical care — not just supervision or convenience — the entire cost of the facility (including meals and lodging) may be deductible as a medical expense. If the primary reason is personal rather than medical, only the medical services component is deductible.

For a parent who needs skilled nursing care following a serious illness, the full facility cost is likely deductible. For a parent in an assisted living community primarily for social reasons or light assistance, only actual medical services received there would count.

Multiple Support Agreements: Splitting Deductions Among Siblings

What if multiple siblings share the cost of supporting and caring for an elderly parent? In that case, you can use a Multiple Support Agreement (IRS Form 2120). Under this arrangement, if a group of people together provide more than 50% of a person’s support, one person in the group can claim the dependency exemption each year (you can rotate who claims it).

However, for medical expenses specifically, each person can only deduct the medical expenses they personally paid, regardless of who claims the dependency exemption. So if you paid your mother’s doctor bills and your sibling paid for her prescriptions, each of you can deduct what you actually paid — as long as your mother qualifies as each person’s dependent under the multiple support rules.

The 7.5% AGI Threshold Still Applies

Even with multiple family members’ medical expenses combined, you still need to clear the 7.5% AGI hurdle. The benefit of pooling everyone’s expenses is that it’s easier to exceed the floor. A family with a child receiving therapy, a spouse recovering from surgery, and an elderly parent in a nursing home could have medical expenses that make itemizing very worthwhile.

What You Cannot Deduct for Dependents

The same restrictions that apply to your own medical expenses apply to dependents’ expenses. You can’t deduct: over-the-counter medications (unless prescribed), cosmetic procedures that aren’t medically necessary, gym memberships for general fitness, vitamins and supplements for general health, or any costs reimbursed by insurance or paid from an FSA or HSA.

Divorced Parents: Who Gets the Deduction?

In divorce situations, the parent who actually paid the medical expense can deduct it — regardless of which parent claims the child as a dependent. This is one area where the IRS’s medical expense rules differ from the dependency exemption rules. If you paid your child’s medical bills out of your own funds, you can include those costs in your Schedule A medical expense deduction even if your ex-spouse claims the child as a dependent that year.

The Bottom Line

The medical expense deduction extends well beyond your own healthcare costs — it covers qualifying expenses you pay for your spouse, children, and elderly parents. Combining everyone’s medical costs under one deduction significantly improves the odds of clearing the 7.5% AGI threshold. If you’re supporting an aging parent or have children with special healthcare needs, it’s worth carefully tallying all qualifying expenses to see if itemizing your medical costs provides a meaningful tax benefit.