Enhanced premium tax credits are available to consumers who enroll in an Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance plan through the ACA’s Marketplace or through one of the state-based marketplaces. The enhanced credits are more robust than the original premium tax credits that were available to ACA plan enrollees when the law went into effect in 2014.
In 2021, Congress improved the premium tax credits for those enrolling in ACA plans for 2022 under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021 by establishing temporary enhanced subsidies for two years (2021 and 2022). Then in 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which extended the enhanced subsidies for three more years (2023, 2024 and 2025). Under these laws, enhanced subsidies reduce the amount an enrollee contributes for a benchmark silver plan varies by income on a sliding scale. Lower-income consumers pay as little as $0 and higher-income enrollees pay as much as 8.5% of their household income. (See premium tax credits.)