WASHINGTON, March 20, 2026, 09:07 EDT
U.S. taxpayers who don’t provide direct deposit information—or whose banks bounce back a refund—could be waiting weeks for their IRS refunds under updated payment rules. In a March 9 letter, House Ways and Means Committee Democrats said the IRS had already issued 530,000 CP53E notices and was preparing to send another 300,000 that week, putting this season’s total above 830,000.
This is significant: According to the IRS, anyone receiving a CP53E notice—that’s the letter sent when an electronic refund can’t go through—usually has a 30-day window to update or fix their bank details online. Ignore that, and after six weeks, the agency will cut a paper check instead, dragging the wait well past the typical electronic refund timeline.
President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14247 kicked off the move to electronic payments. For 2025 returns filed this year, the Taxpayer Advocate Service warns: refunds lacking valid bank info or with bounced direct deposits risk getting frozen. Taxpayers in that situation have to update their banking details or request a paper check to unfreeze funds.
The IRS says filers can check “Where’s My Refund?” 24 hours after submitting a current-year return electronically, three days after e-filing a prior-year return, or four weeks if they mailed it in. To look up a refund, you’ll need the refund amount, your Social Security or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, filing status, and the tax year. The online status tool updates every 24 hours. IRS
The IRS reports that the majority of taxpayers opt for direct deposit. In the 2025 filing season, the agency sent out over 93.5 million individual refunds, and close to 87 million of those — about 93% — went out electronically. Paper refund checks? The IRS says they’re more than 16 times likelier to be lost, stolen, altered, or hit by delays.
Capitol Hill isn’t staying quiet on the issue. Representatives Danny Davis and Terri Sewell pointed out that taxpayers snagged by the updated process could wait over 10 weeks for a paper refund check. In a letter, they pressed Treasury and IRS officials for answers—how can people without online access speed up their refunds? And will late filers be paid interest for those delays?
“The government does not appreciate how difficult it is for some populations to open a bank account,” Melissa Wiley, partner at Kostelanetz, told Thomson Reuters Checkpoint. For many of those households, she said, refunds are essential to paying core expenses. Thomson Reuters Tax
The risks are falling hardest on a few groups. Erin Collins, the National Taxpayer Advocate, noted that roughly 10 million individuals still got their refunds by paper check last year. She flagged unbanked households, Americans overseas, certain religious groups, domestic violence survivors, and people with disabilities as likely to face obstacles if the system goes fully digital. “We should not, however, advance technological change at the cost of excluding those who need accommodations,” Collins wrote. Taxpayer Advocate Service
If you get a CP53E notice, you’ll have to update your bank info through your IRS online account—calling the IRS won’t help, since staff can’t take those details over the phone. According to the Taxpayer Advocate Service, the notice goes out just once; if you haven’t set up direct deposit, you can use the online account to request a paper check instead.
Taxpayers should watch for a letter from the IRS—not calls or texts—if there’s missing bank info, according to the agency. The new direct-deposit policy is just one piece; refunds may still get held up for reasons like errors in the math, incomplete or amended forms, flagged fraud or identity checks, additional scrutiny on certain credits, or just waiting for your bank to process the payment.
