It can take 1 to 5 days for your financial institution to deposit funds into your account. If the status in Where's My Refund? shows “Refund Sent”, the IRS has sent your tax refund to your financial institution for direct deposit.
If you file your tax return electronically, the IRS will generally process direct deposit refunds within 7-10 days of receiving your tax return, and process paper checks within about two weeks. Filing a paper tax return may delay your refund by up to several weeks.
For example, a U.S. Treasury check, whose funds are guaranteed by the federal government, will clear within one banking day. But a bank may view a personal check differently. Once a bank knows that the check is legitimate, it will usually release payment within five days.
Your bank is allowed by law to hold onto your refund for up to four business days before releasing it to you (you can thank Congress for that). If there is anything incorrect about your direct deposit information - the name on the account (must be yours), the RTN or the account number - the IRS will mail you a check.
According to banking regulations, reasonable periods of time include an extension of up to five business days for most checks. Under certain circumstances, the bank may be able to impose a longer hold if it can establish that the longer hold is reasonable.
Banks may not hold cash or electronic payments, direct deposit, money orders, Treasury checks; Federal Reserve Bank and Federal Home Loan checks, cashier's, certified, or teller's checks, and state or local government checks, along with the first $5,000 of traditional checks that are not in question (next-day items).
Most checks take two business days to clear. Checks may take longer to clear based on the amount of the check, your relationship with the bank, or if it's not a regular deposit. A receipt from the teller or ATM tells you when the funds become available.
Deposits of $5,000 or less usually clear within 3 business days. Deposits of more than $5,000 usually take 4 business days to clear. The first $200 of the total check deposits will be available no later than the first business day after the deposit, usually available immediately.
This situation is due to COVID-19 related closures of IRS facilities and IRS manpower shifted to stimulus check processing. The IRS facilities have started to partially open and processing of mail is resuming.
1 Sometimes there are circumstances that cause a check deposit to be placed on a temporary hold of up to seven business days. We place the hold to protect you from fraud, overdrafts, or fees that may occur if we were to make funds available immediately and the check is returned to you.
The fastest way to have access to check funds is to deposit the check in person at a bank or credit union branch. That ensures the deposit is made before the bank's cut-off time, which speeds up the process. Mobile check deposits and those made at ATMs after hours typically take longer to clear.
Large checks: Checks that are for large amounts usually have a hold placed on them. That's so that the bank can protect itself from lost funds if the check doesn't clear. If your check is for at least $5,000 or more, expect a hold to be placed on the check until it clears.
Yes. Your bank may hold the funds according to its funds availability policy. Or it may have placed an exception hold on the deposit.
The IRS started sending the third Economic Impact Payments to eligible individuals in March 2021 and continued sending payments throughout the year as tax returns were processed.
Some Banks Keep Customers' Stimulus Checks if Accounts Are Overdrawn. Financial institutions can use the government deposits to make up for recipients' negative balances.
The bank may place a longer hold on a check in any of several circumstances: The check has been deposited into an account that has been open for less than 30 days. The total amount of checks deposited in one day is larger than $5,525, but only for the amount in excess of $5,525.
Please note that Tax Refund checks are government checks, and as such they come with very specific rules for depositing or cashing. For this reason, we will not accept government checks, including tax refund checks, by mobile deposit. For your tax refund check, please visit us during lobby hours.
Treasury checks deposited into ATM machines or night-drops can be held. Only checks deposited in person by the payee into the payee's account are exempt.
Funds deposited before 9:00 p.m. ET on a business day will generally be available the next business day. Funds deposited before 8:00 p.m. PT on a business day will generally be available the next business day. You will be notified if a hold is placed on any deposited funds.
When in doubt, call the bank that the check is drawn on to see if you can get any information about the check—and ask if it has cleared. Don't call the number printed on a check, since it may go to a scammer. Instead, look up the bank's number on the bank's official website.
Can a bank release a pending deposit early? Some banks can release a pending deposit early for a fee if you ask them. This will only generally apply to deposits that are likely to be authorized, such as a payroll check from your employer.
Contact Your Bank
You can ask your bank to provide an explanation for the hold or sometimes even to release the hold. In most cases, you won't be able to do anything about the hold though, and because all banks have them, you can't switch banks to avoid them either.
A check has not necessarily cleared just because the money is availble in your account or appears on a receipt. Federal law requires your bank to make the funds available to you within a certain amount of time, whether the funds actually arrived from the other bank or not.
Depositing a big amount of cash that is $10,000 or more means your bank or credit union will report it to the federal government. The $10,000 threshold was created as part of the Bank Secrecy Act, passed by Congress in 1970, and adjusted with the Patriot Act in 2002.