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Everyone who qualifies for a refund on their taxes in 2026 wants to get their money as quickly as possible from the IRS. Unfortunately, many people will likely be waiting for a year or longer before their check arrives.
Here are three things you can do to get your tax refund faster in 2026:
- File electronically. Imagine processing millions of tax returns that come in the mail between late January and April 15th. That is a tremendous amount of paper to process, and it’s first-come, first-served. You can speed things up by not using snail mail and submitting your tax return electronically. And by speeding things up, we mean by months. The IRS says the average processing time for an electronically submitted return is 21 days.
- Choose direct deposit. Every year, the IRS pays out billions of dollars to millions of taxpayers. Cutting checks for refund recipients takes the IRS months, and you can be waiting a long time for a paper check. Instead, have your deposit deposited electronically. Millions of people do it safely every year without the IRS making an error.
- Check for errors before submitting your return. A mistake on your return can delay your refund by weeks, if not longer. The IRS has to catch the error, send you a letter telling you what corrections are needed, wait for your response, recheck your return, and finally process your refund. If you do your own taxes, double-check everything on your return, so it’s not pulled for a manual review. Good tax software or a professional tax preparer always checks for errors.
To track the status of your refund, use the “Where’s My Refund” tool at irs.gov. You don’t have to check multiple times a day. Updates are made daily, usually overnight.
You can also call the IRS refund hotline at 800-829-1954, but be prepared for long wait times.
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Having spent over fifteen years helping people plan their lives financially, Bob has a vast amount of personal knowledge concerning personal finance. During his career, Bob mastered many financial products to help people achieve their financial goals, including life insurance, disability insurance, mutual funds, and stocks and bonds. He earned the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) designation and held numerous securities licenses. Bob is an internationally published poet and a freelance writer living in North Texas with his wife and Doberman puppy.
