Income tax refund: how to check status and fix a delayed refund

Your employer deducted ₹40,000 as TDS last year, but after your deductions your actual tax came to ₹28,000. You filed your return in July and the portal showed a refund of ₹12,000. It is now November and the money has not arrived. You are not alone: an income tax refund can be held up for reasons as small as a bank account that was never validated or a name spelt differently on your PAN.

The good news is that most delays have a clear cause that you can see and fix yourself on the e-filing portal. This guide explains how refunds arise, what happens after you file, how to check the status, the common reasons a refund is delayed or fails, the interest the government pays on late refunds, and how to ask for a failed refund to be sent again.

How an income tax refund arises

The Income-tax Act, 2025, which replaced the 1961 Act from 1 April 2026, puts the basic rule in section 431: if the tax paid by you or on your behalf for a tax year is more than the tax you are properly chargeable with, you are entitled to a refund of the excess. The same idea applied under the old Act.

One point on timing. A return filed during 2026 is for the financial year 2025-26, which began before the new Act took effect. Under the repeal and savings clause in section 536, proceedings for such earlier years, including processing of the return, still follow the 1961 Act, whose refund rules work in much the same way. The new section numbers in this guide apply in full from tax year 2026-27.

Tax gets paid in several ways during the year, and any of them can create an excess:

• TDS deducted by your employer, bank or tenant that turns out higher than your final tax, for example because you claimed deductions or the employer did not count an investment proof.
• TDS on fixed deposit interest when your total income is below the taxable limit.
• Tax collected at source (TCS), for instance on certain foreign remittances, that you can claim back against your total tax.
• Advance tax or self-assessment tax paid in excess.

Under section 433 of the new Act, a claim for refund is made by filing your return of income. There is no separate refund form for an ordinary taxpayer. If you do not file a return, you do not get the refund.

What happens after you file: e-verification and processing

Step 1: verify within 30 days

Filing the return is only half the job. You must e-verify it, or send the signed ITR-V, within 30 days of filing. If you verify late, the date of verification is treated as the date of filing and all the consequences of a late return follow. A return that is never verified is treated as invalid, which means no processing and no refund. A condonation request may be possible for genuine delays.

Step 2: processing by the department

Once verified, the return is processed centrally. Under section 270(1) of the new Act, the department computes your income after correcting things like arithmetical errors or incorrect claims apparent from the return, works out tax, interest and fees, adjusts the TDS, TCS, advance tax and self-assessment tax you paid, and sends you an intimation showing the sum payable or the refund due. The refund is then granted.

If the department wants to make an adjustment to your figures, it must first tell you, in writing or electronically, and consider your reply. If you do not reply within 30 days, the adjustment is made. So check your email and the portal after filing, and answer such communications in time.

There is an outer limit too: no intimation can be sent after nine months from the end of the financial year in which the return was filed. In practice many refunds come much sooner, but the law does not promise a fixed number of days.

How to check your income tax refund status

The quickest place to look is the e-filing portal at incometax.gov.in.

1. Log in with your user ID (PAN) and password.
2. Go to e-File, then Income Tax Returns, then View Filed Returns.
3. Pick the assessment year and click View Details.
4. You will see the life cycle of the return: filed, verified, processed, and the refund status.

If your PAN is not linked with Aadhaar, the portal shows a pop-up asking you to link them. Take that seriously, as explained below.

Status you may see	What it means
Refund issued	The refund has been sent to your nominated bank account
Refund partially adjusted	Part of it was set off against an earlier tax demand; the rest was paid
Full refund adjusted	All of it was set off against an outstanding demand
Refund failed	The credit could not be made, usually because of a bank account problem

Also open the intimation sent after processing. It shows the department’s computation next to yours, so you can see whether the refund amount was changed and why.

Why an income tax refund gets delayed or fails

The portal’s own help pages list the usual reasons for a failed refund:

• Bank account not pre-validated. Pre-validation is compulsory. An account that has not been validated on the portal cannot receive the refund.
• Name mismatch. The name on the bank account does not match the name in your PAN records.
• Invalid IFSC. Check it, especially if your branch code has changed.
• Account closed. The account you gave in the return has since been closed.
• PAN inoperative. If PAN is not linked with Aadhaar, it becomes inoperative, and the portal warns you to link it.

Other common causes of delay are not strictly failures:

• The return was not e-verified, or was verified late.
• Your return has an arithmetical error or a claim the department sees as incorrect, so it proposes an adjustment and waits for your reply.
• An old tax demand is pending against your PAN, and the refund is set off against it.

Pre-validate your bank account before you file

This single step prevents most refund failures. On the portal, go to Profile, then My Bank Account, then Add Bank Account, and submit the details. The request goes to your bank, and the status is updated in your e-filing account within 10 to 12 working days.

Some points from the portal’s FAQ:

• You can pre-validate savings, current, cash credit, overdraft and NRO accounts. Loan and PPF accounts are not accepted.
• You need a valid PAN registered on the portal and an active bank account linked with that PAN.
• Only a validated account can be nominated to receive a refund. You can nominate more than one.
• If validation fails, the account appears under Failed Bank Accounts and you can click Re-Validate after fixing the problem.
• EVC, the bank-based e-verification code, can be enabled for only one account at a time.

Before you validate, make sure the name in your bank records matches your PAN, including initials and spelling. A quick visit to the branch to update the name is easier than chasing a failed refund later.

When the refund is adjusted against an old demand

Section 438 of the new Act allows the tax authorities to set off a refund against any sum still payable by you under the Act, instead of paying it out. Before doing this, they must give you an intimation in writing of the action they propose.

Many people find a “refund adjusted” status because of a small demand from an old year they did not know about, such as a mismatch in an earlier return. If you receive such an intimation, do not ignore it. Check the old demand on the portal. If it is correct, the adjustment simply settles it. If it is wrong, for example because the tax was already paid or a rectification is pending, reply with your reasons and supporting papers so the demand can be corrected before the refund is used up.

Interest on an income tax refund

If your refund is delayed, the government pays you simple interest. Under section 437 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, the rate is 0.5% for every month or part of a month. The period depends on where the refund came from:

• Refund of TDS, TCS or advance tax: interest runs from 1 April of the year following the tax year to the date the refund is granted, if you filed the return by the due date. If you filed late, it runs from the date of filing.
• Refund of self-assessment tax: from the date of filing the return or paying the tax, whichever is later, to the date of refund.

Two limits apply. No interest is payable on these refunds if the refund is less than 10% of the tax determined on processing or regular assessment. And if the delay is caused by you, wholly or partly, that period is left out.

As an illustration, say your tax determined is ₹1 lakh and your TDS refund is ₹20,000, filed on time, for a tax year ending 31 March. If the refund is granted in October, interest runs from April to October, seven months counting part months, at 0.5% a month: 3.5% of ₹20,000, or ₹700. If the refund were only ₹8,000, that is under 10% of ₹1 lakh, so no interest.

Section 437 applies in full to the new Act’s tax years, starting with tax year 2026-27. For a refund relating to an earlier year that falls due after 1 April 2026, section 536 says the new Act’s provisions on interest on refunds apply for the period after that date.

How to request a refund reissue

If the status shows “Refund failed”, you can ask for it to be sent again. You need a filed return with a failed refund, a validated bank account and a way to e-verify: an OTP on your Aadhaar-registered mobile, a registered digital signature, or EVC through your bank, demat or net banking.

1. Log in and go to Services, then Refund Reissue.
2. Click Create Refund Reissue Request and pick the record.
3. Select the bank account. Only validated accounts appear, so validate a new one first if needed.
4. E-verify the request.
5. Note the transaction ID; a confirmation also goes to your registered email and mobile.
6. Track it under View Refund Reissue Request.

Fix the cause first. Reissuing to the same closed account or mismatched name will fail again.

Key takeaways

• A refund arises when tax paid through TDS, TCS, advance or self-assessment tax exceeds your actual tax; you claim it by filing your return.
• E-verify within 30 days, or the return is late or invalid.
• Pre-validate a bank account in your own name, matching your PAN, and keep PAN linked with Aadhaar.
• Check status under View Filed Returns and read the intimation.
• Interest under section 437 is 0.5% a month, but not if the refund is under 10% of the tax determined.
• Use Refund Reissue after fixing the bank problem.

Most refund problems are paperwork, not disputes. Spend ten minutes on your bank and PAN details before filing and your income tax refund is far more likely to arrive without a chase. You can estimate your tax, and so your likely refund, with the income tax calculator. This is general information, not tax advice.