[talhasaleem1990]

I wanted to clarify two things:

1) Do you have to own your own home for taxation or can paying rent also qualify you as head of household?

2) To claim head of households, do you need to have dependants or other people living with you?

[ebaines]

1) No - you do not need to own your home to claim Head of household (HoH) as your filing status on your income tax. But you must pay for more than half the upkeep of the home (by paying the rent for example).

2) You must have a "qualifying person" living with you more than half the year - this can be a child or grandchild who lived with you more than half the year, or a parent whom you can claim as an exemption regardless of whether they lived with you or not (if not living with you, you must be paying at least half the upkeep of the parents home), or other relative (niece/nephew, aunt/uncle, grandparent etc) who lived with you at least 6 months and whom you can claim as an exemption. Note that having a roommate who is unrelated to you doesn't count.

And although you didn't ask about it, you must also be unmarried to file as HoH.