ITR Refund – Big news for taxpayers. Now waiting for refund for months after filing Income Tax Return (ITR) seems to be a thing of the past. This year many taxpayers are getting refund within a few hours after filing their tax return. Earlier, where it used to take 90 days or more for the refund to come, in Assessment Year 2025-26, some taxpayers got their refund in their bank account within just 4 hours of filing the return. About 12–13 years ago, this refund used to take more than 3 months to come, but now due to fast digital processing, this time has been reduced to hours.

Refund came within a few hours of filing ITR

Arun Prakash, a media professional from Noida, said that he filed his income tax return i.e. ITR Form-1 at 5.03 pm and the refund was credited to his account at 9.02 pm on the same day, i.e. just 4 hours after filling the ITR form. He also shared the timestamp proof of filing ITR and getting the refund. The time of filing and refund can be clearly seen in the screenshot below.

Tax professionals say that earlier it used to take an average of 30 to 40 days for the Income Tax Department to send the refund, but this time some taxpayers got the refund on the same day they filed ITR.

Tax expert Deepak Verma says that many of my clients got their refund very quickly this time. On the same day they filled the ITR form. This is a great example of the digital processing of the Income Tax Department.”

However, it has happened with very few tax filers who have received refunds in record time. Some even got it on the same day. It is difficult to say whether a large number of taxpayers are getting refunds so quickly or not, as there is no huge amount of data available to support this. But it is clear that the system has become much faster and better than before. After all, who could have thought 10 years ago that tax refunds could be received within a few hours? Yet, the Income Tax Department website still says that it may take 4 to 5 weeks for the refund to be credited.

From 90 days to 10 days and now in just a few hours

Last year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the Parliament that in the financial year 2013-14, it took an average of 93 days to get income tax refund. Whereas in the financial year 2023-24, this time has been reduced to just 10 days.

The department is matching the information given in ITR with third-party data like AIS (Annual Information Statement) and Form 26AS. If there is a difference in income and expenditure in any return or someone has claimed more refund than required, the system ‘flags’ it. Apart from this, if any taxpayer has tax assessment or tax dues pending for previous years, then the department can stop the refund of the current year or adjust it with the old dues.

Reasons for early refund

Fully digital processing: Now the processing and verification of ITR has become completely automated.

 

JSON based filing: JSON format is now being used in place of the old Excel system, which makes data read faster.

 

Instant processing starts after e-Verify: The refund process starts as soon as you electronically verify the return.

 

Features like bank account pre-validation and PAN-Aadhaar linking ensure that refunds are credited directly to the correct accounts and quickly.

How to track your income tax refund?

Login to the Income Tax website incometax.gov.in

 

Select ‘e-File > View Filed Returns’ option

 

Click on the relevant Assessment Year (AY)

 

Then go to ‘View Details’ and check the refund status