Has there been spike in Income Tax refunds in last 24 hours? Experts weigh in

Tax experts are saying that a lot of taxpayers got their tax refunds in the last couple of days, any many of these refunds are high-value ones.

Archit Gupta, founder & CEO, ClearTax, says over the past 24 hours, he has seen a notable uptick in refund processing by the Income Tax Department.

"The refund credits among our users have increased nearly 3X compared to the previous week, and we believe that this accelerated movement has provided timely relief to a large segment of taxpayers, particularly those with high-value refunds that were earlier held up due to additional validation checks."


Chartered accountant (CA) Ashish Niraj, Partner, A S N & Company, Chartered Accountants, says many of his clients got income tax refund in the last two days.

Niraj says, “Although small-value refunds were processed promptly, there was delay in large refunds. In the last two days, many of our clients got their refunds credited for which they were impatiently waiting. Hope remaining clients whose tax refunds are still pending will get it soon as it seems that now faster processing is being done for large refunds also.”

Abhishek Soni, founder and CEO, Tax2Win says, "Yes, we came to know that one of our clients, whose return had been under processing for the last three to four months, has now received the refund. If this continues, it would mean relief for taxpayers who have been waiting for their refunds."

Chartered accountant Himank Singla said in a tweet, "A large number of Income Tax Refunds have been issued yesterday night and today morning! Did you get your Income Tax Refund?"

Income Tax Department's tax refund data

The Income tax Department recently released data on direct tax collections including that of tax refunds.

According to the data, as of February 10, 2025, the total tax refund for FY 2025–26 stood at Rs 3.34 lakh crore. They were however, 18.82% down year-on-year compared to refunded amounts for FY 2024–25, which was nearly Rs 4.12 lakh crore on February 10, 2025.

What did Minister say about tax refunds in Parliament?

In an unstarred question, Rajya Sabha MP Deepak Prakash asked Pankaj Chaudhary, Ministry of Finance, Minister of State, the precise reasons for the delay in income tax returns, specially of senior citizens.

Prakash also asked about how many refunds that are more than 90 days old are pending with the Income Tax (I-T) Department as of January 31, 2026.

Responding to the query, the MoS clarified that tax refund delays are happening because of the Central Board of Direct Taxes’ (CBDT) NUDGE (Non-intrusive Usage of Data to Guide and Enable) campaign, an extensive technology-driven initiative that leverages data analytics.

“Under these campaigns, communications are sent to select taxpayers to review and revise/ update their ITRs already filed. The taxpayers are selected on the basis of advanced risk analysis identifying incorrect or non-reporting of assets or income, or excess claims of deductions or exemptions in their ITRs,” says Chaudhary.

Revealing the data, Chaudhary had clarified that out of a total 8,79,62,234 ITRs filed for AY 2025-26 by the taxpayers till February 4, 2026, returns pending for processing for more than 90 days numbered 24,64,044.