California stimulus check calculator
A single filer with 40,000 of California adjusted gross income and one dependent would have received 700 from the 2022 Middle Class Tax Refund: 350 base plus 350 for having a dependent. Enter your filing status, income and dependents to estimate yours. Free in your browser.
- Free
- Runs in your browser
- No sign-up
- Your data stays on your device
Run — free
Worked example
- Filing status
- Single
- Agi
- 40,000
- Dependents
- 1
- Estimated payment
- 700
- Base payment
- 350
- Dependent bonus
- 350
- Income band
- low
California residents who search for a California stimulus check almost always mean the 2022 Middle Class Tax Refund: a one-time Franchise Tax Board payment of up to one thousand fifty dollars that used the 2020 California return to pick an amount from a published table. Filing status chooses the schedule, California adjusted gross income chooses the income band, and the number of dependents decides whether the with-dependent column applies. This estimator accepts those three fields, looks up the official FTB bands, and returns the estimated payment together with eligibility, the base amount, and any dependent bonus.
What the California stimulus check is and how the FTB table works
The search california stimulus check maps onto a real Franchise Tax Board table, not a made-up rebate percentage. In 2022 California issued the Middle Class Tax Refund as a one-time payment of up to one thousand fifty dollars, using the 2020 California income tax return as the source of filing status, California adjusted gross income, and whether the return claimed a dependent.
Recipients also had to have filed that return by the published deadline, have been California residents for at least six months of 2020, not have been eligible to be claimed as a dependent themselves, and still live in California when the payment issued; those residency and filing-deadline tests are outside this calculator because they are not numbers a form can prove.
Married couples filing jointly sit on the highest income ceilings: one hundred fifty thousand or less, then two hundred fifty thousand, then five hundred thousand, with payments of seven hundred, five hundred, and four hundred dollars if no dependent is claimed, or one thousand fifty, seven hundred fifty, and six hundred if at least one dependent is claimed.
Head of household and qualifying widow, the surviving-spouse status, share those same joint ceilings but with a lower dollar column: three hundred fifty, two hundred fifty, and two hundred without a dependent, doubling when a dependent is present. Single filers and married filers filing separately use the tighter individual ceilings of seventy-five thousand, one hundred twenty-five thousand, and two hundred fifty thousand, with the same dollar amounts as the head-of-household no-dependent column, again rising when a dependent is claimed.
Above the top ceiling the table pays zero and this calculator returns eligible false rather than throwing. Extra dependents beyond the first do not raise the payment; the official column is at least one dependent, so two children and five children produce the same bonus. Example: forty thousand dollars of California AGI as a single filer with one dependent is the lowest individual band and seven hundred dollars.
One hundred eighty thousand as a joint return with two dependents is the middle joint band and seven hundred fifty dollars, not a per-child multiple. The formula field restates that table lookup so a reviewer can print it next to the numbers.
Where a California stimulus check calculator earns its keep
People who type california stimulus check into a search box are not looking for a generic rebate toy where they paste their own percentages, and they are not looking for this year's federal Economic Impact Payment tables. They want the Franchise Tax Board Middle Class Tax Refund schedule applied to a filing status, a California AGI figure, and a dependent count, so they can see what that 2022 payment would have been on a given 2020 return.
Journalists, tax-prep desks, and classroom public-finance lessons still compare those historical amounts; a deterministic oracle that names the three official groups avoids a spreadsheet cell someone forgot to lock. Head of household versus single is the easy mistake by hand: both can look like a one-adult return, but the FTB surviving-spouse group keeps the joint income ceilings while the individual group drops them to seventy-five thousand, one hundred twenty-five thousand, and two hundred fifty thousand. Failed validation does not consume balance.
Pair this capability with a separate federal credit tool when you need those layers; keep this surface focused on the California table people mean when they search for the stimulus check.
What you can do with it
Check a 2020 return against the California stimulus table
Enter filing status, California AGI, and dependents to lock the estimated Middle Class Tax Refund, the income band, and whether a dependent bonus applied.
Household archive and planning notes
Store the estimated payment next to a scanned 2020 return so a later question about the California stimulus check has a reproducible answer.
FAQ
What happens if adjusted gross income is negative?
California AGI must be a finite number greater than or equal to zero; negative income is not billed.
Do more dependents increase the California stimulus payment?
No. The official FTB column is at least one dependent. Two dependents and five dependents produce the same bonus as one; zero dependents uses the no-dependent column.
Who qualified for the California Middle Class Tax Refund besides meeting the income limits?
You also had to file your 2020 California return by the deadline, live in California for at least six months of 2020, not be claimable as someone else's dependent, and still live in the state when the payment went out. The calculator cannot check those tests.
Which tax return does the California stimulus estimate use?
Your 2020 California income tax return. Its filing status, its California adjusted gross income and whether it claimed a dependent decided the 2022 payment, so enter the figures from that return rather than a later one.
What happens if my income is above the top band?
The official table pays nothing above the highest income limit for your filing status. The calculator then shows that you were not eligible and an estimated payment of zero, instead of an error.
Related tools
For developers — API access
Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.
API endpoint
Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, by email and from Telegram — and soon from our app too.
Call it from your stack
curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/fin/california-stimulus-check \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"filing_status":"single","agi":40000,"dependents":1}'const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/fin/california-stimulus-check", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
"Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
body: JSON.stringify({
"filing_status": "single",
"agi": 40000,
"dependents": 1
})
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();import os, requests
res = requests.post(
"https://api.kit.forhosting.com/fin/california-stimulus-check",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
json={
"filing_status": "single",
"agi": 40000,
"dependents": 1
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/fin/california-stimulus-check", false, stream_context_create([
"http" => [
"method" => "POST",
"header" => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
"content" => '{"filing_status":"single","agi":40000,"dependents":1}',
],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"filing_status":"single","agi":40000,"dependents":1}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/fin/california-stimulus-check", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)Example request
{
"filing_status": "single",
"agi": 40000,
"dependents": 1
}Example response
{
"task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
"type": "fin.california_stimulus_check",
"status": "queued",
"_links": {
"result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
}
}The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.
Pricing
Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.
Limits
max_agi | 1000000000000000 |
max_dependents | 20 |
Errors
| HTTP | Code | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
401 | unauthorized | Missing or invalid API key. |
402 | insufficient_balance | Your balance doesn't cover the task price. |
404 | unknown_type | That task type doesn't exist. |
429 | rate_limited | Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling. |
Technical notes
Negative adjusted gross income is rejected as invalid_input and is not billed. Successful calls are billed at $0.002.
What the California stimulus check is and how the FTB table works
What this endpoint does encode is the dollar table from FTB public service bulletin 2022-13.
Input contract, filing statuses, and error behaviour
Prefer bare numbers over formatted strings; currency marks and thousands separators are not parsed. POST a JSON body with three required fields. filing_status selects the official schedule and must be one of single, married_joint, married_separate, head_of_household, or qualifying_widow; aliases status and filing are accepted, and common abbreviations such as mfj, mfs, hoh, and qss resolve to the canonical values. qualifying_widow uses the head-of-household surviving-spouse table, matching the FTB grouping. An unknown status fails with invalid_input listing the allowed values. agi is California adjusted gross income in United States dollars from the 2020 return the refund used; it must be a finite number greater than or equal to zero, and the aliases income, adjusted_gross_income, and california_agi are accepted so a spreadsheet export does not need a rename step. If agi is missing, empty, NaN, Infinity, a non-numeric string, or otherwise not a finite number, the task fails with invalid_input naming agi and is not billed. A negative amount is also rejected, with a message that income cannot be negative — that is the product contract for this landing. dependents is the whole number of dependents claimed on that return, from zero through twenty; aliases dependent_count and num_dependents are accepted. A fractional count, a negative count, or a value above the published limit fails with invalid_input. On success the body echoes the canonical filing_status, rounded agi, and dependents; returns eligible as a boolean that is false when the table pays zero; estimated_payment as the looked-up dollars; base_payment as the no-dependent column of that band; dependent_bonus as the extra dollars when at least one dependent is present; has_dependent; income_band as low, middle, upper, or ineligible; schedule_group as married_joint, head_of_household, or individual; program set to middle_class_tax_refund; return_year of 2020 and payment_year of 2022; and a formula string. Pricing for a successful item is a flat $0.002.
Where a California stimulus check calculator earns its keep
Planning scripts that batch many households through the JSON API get the same dollars a human sees on the page. Keep requests small, pin estimated_payment and eligible in tests, and you get a reproducible Middle Class Tax Refund figure for landing pages, explainers, and lightweight household notebooks without standing up a tax-engine product of your own.
Integration use cases
Newsroom or classroom historical comparison
Batch many households through the JSON API so an explainer quotes the same official FTB dollars the widget shows, without a handwritten band table.
Technical questions
How is the California stimulus check amount calculated?
Send filing_status, California agi, and dependents. The API looks up the official 2022 FTB Middle Class Tax Refund table for that schedule group and income band, using the with-dependent column when dependents is at least one.
Which filing statuses share a payment schedule?
married_joint uses the joint table. head_of_household and qualifying_widow share the surviving-spouse table. single and married_separate use the all-other-individuals table with tighter AGI ceilings.
What does the California stimulus check calculator cost?
The browser tool is free. API requests use prepaid KIT balance at $0.002 per successful call; invalid input is not billed.