ITR Return Delay Reasons: The last date for filing Income Tax Return i.e. ITR for AY 2025-26 has ended on 16 September 2025. The tax department has given refund to most of the people, but there are still lakhs of taxpayers whose money is stuck, neither refund nor any message has been received. Many people are worried that so much time has passed and yet the money has not come to their account. In some cases the verification is pending and in some cases there is a problem of linking with the old returns. If your refund is also pending, then first of all understand why there is such a delay in getting the refund this time.
After ITR filing, processing, verification and high value refund check takes some time. According to the report of Moneycontrol, the Income Tax Department has said that by the end of December, 99% of the refunds will soon come to the people’s accounts. If your status is showing ‘Refund Issued’ but the money has not come, then this money can come to your account after 7-10 days. How can you check your status? You can see this here.
Check status on Income Tax website
- First of all you have to go to the Income Tax website and check the status. For this you will have to follow some steps.
- After filing ITR and e-verifying it, the Income Tax Department usually deposits the refund in your account within 4-5 weeks.
- For this, first of all it is very easy to check the status of your ITR refund, it can be done in two minutes sitting at home.
- First of all open incometax.gov.in or eportal.incometax.gov.in.
- Now login by entering your user ID (which is mostly PAN number) and password.
- After login, click on the ‘e-File’ tab above, then ‘Income Tax Returns’ and then click on ‘View Filed Returns’ or ‘View Filed Returns’.
- Then there you will see the list of all your filed ITRs, select the ITR of the year for which you want to see the refund.
In this you will know whether the refund is issued, processed, or still pending. You will also see the date on the screen. If Issued is visible then the money comes to the bank account in 2-3 days.
Biggest reasons for refund delay
Bank account error- If the account number or IFSC code entered on your portal is wrong, or is outdated, then the money will not come. Therefore, pre-validate the account beforehand, enter the correct number and IFSC, only then the refund will be directly credited to the account.
Aadhaar and PAN linking- If your Aadhaar and PAN are not properly linked, or there is even a slight difference in name-date of birth, then there is a delay in getting the refund. Therefore, it is necessary for you to link Aadhaar-PAN.
Wrong deduction in ITR- If wrong deduction or credit has been claimed in the ITR, such as excess amount shown in 80C or a fake bill has been raised, then the refund is stopped. If the tax department has any doubt, it sends a notice and asks for proof, the money remains stuck until the correct documents are given and if a wrong claim is caught, a penalty can also be imposed along with the notice. If there is no match between ITR and Form 26AS, Form 16 or AIS then the refund stops immediately. The tax department first checks all this information and only then the money is sent to your account.
Government will pay this much interest if refund is delayed
If the Income Tax Department delays the refund, then under Section 244A of the law, the taxpayer will get 6% interest annually. This interest starts accruing from the day the refund is considered due, usually after ITR processing or from the beginning of the financial year. Currently, most of the people who are getting refund in December are getting the original amount as well as this bonus. The good thing is that this interest is automatically calculated and added.
