Where’s my tax refund? This online IRS tool shows your refund’s status

The 2025 tax season is in full swing, and the number one question most people have on their minds after filing their return is, “Where’s my tax refund?” Thankfully, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offers a quick and easy online tool to help you check the status of your tax refund. Here’s what you need to know about the tool as well as how long it may take to receive your refund.

Check your tax refund status with the IRS’s ‘Where’s My Refund?’ tool

If you’re anxious about where your refund is, there’s good news: you can check its status in just a few seconds using the “Where’s My Refund?” tool from the IRS.

Checking your refund status is pretty easy. Here’s how:

1. Go to the IRS’s “Where’s My Refund?” tool at www.irs.gov/wheres-my-refund.
2. Click the “Check your refund” button.
3. On the refund status page, enter your Social Security Number.
4. Next, select the tax year you are inquiring about.
5. Now, select your filing status for the tax year you selected in the step above.
6. Finally, enter the exact whole dollar amount of the refund you are expecting.
7. Click the “Submit” button.

The IRS says the tool will show you one of three results:

• “Return Received” means the agency has received your tax return and it is still processing it.
• “Refund Approved” means your refund has been approved. You will also see a date that the IRS expects to issue it by.
• “Refund Sent” means the IRS has already issued your refund.

How long until I get my IRS tax refund?

After receiving word that the IRS has issued your tax refund, the next question most people want answered is, “When will I receive my tax refund?”

According to tax firm Jackson Hewitt’s Chief Tax Information Officer, Mark Steber, that depends on the method by which your refund is being delivered.

If your refund is being delivered by direct deposit to your bank account, you should receive it in your account between 2 to 5 business days after the treasury issues the payment.

If your refund is being delivered by paper check, it should be delivered to the address on the check within about 5 to 7 business days.

But as Jackson Hewitt’s Steber points out, the IRS cannot legally send the payments for some refunds out yet. That’s because of a 2015 law known as the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act. The law stipulates that if the taxpayer who files the return claims the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), the IRS must hold the refund until after February 14. The delay is designed to help the IRS detect and prevent tax return fraud.

So, even if you filed your return on the first day of this tax season, if you have claimed either one of those credits, your refund will not have been sent yet. For these people, the IRS says its “Where’s My Refund?” tool “should show an updated status by February 22.”

The agency further explains that it “expects most EITC/ACTC related refunds to be available in taxpayer bank accounts or on debit cards by March 3 if they chose direct deposit and there are no other issues with their tax return.”