Correction to Individual Shared Responsibility Child Dependent Penalty AmountTax News Flash

March 6, 2026

California law requires residents and their dependents to obtain and maintain minimum essential coverage, also referred to as qualifying health care coverage. Individuals who fail to maintain qualifying health care coverage for any month during the taxable year will be subject to an Individual Shared Responsibility penalty unless they qualify for an exemption.

FTB’s most recent 2025 indexing contained a rounding error for the Individual Shared Responsibility penalty amount for dependent children. The corrected penalty amount per dependent child is $475 (revised from the previously stated $450). The personal health care mandate webpage, the tax professionals health care mandate webpage, and the individual shared responsibility penalty estimator have been updated to reflect the correct penalty amount. The FTB 3853 Instructions are currently under revision to reflect this update and is anticipated to be completed by the end of next week.

For more information, go to Health care mandate.