Americans are receiving larger tax refunds on average in the 2026 filing season than last year, though taxpayers are filing at a slower pace in the first few weeks than they were a year ago.

The latest IRS tax filing data was released by the agency on Friday and showed that as of Feb. 6, the average tax refund amount paid to taxpayers was $2,290.

That represents an increase of 10.9% when compared with the average size of refunds paid at the same stage of the 2025 tax filing season, when the average refund amount was $2,065.

Over 7.4 million refunds have been issued as of Feb. 6, down 8.1% from the same time last year when nearly 8.1 million were disbursed to taxpayers.

HERE’S WHEN TAXPAYERS WILL GET THEIR REFUNDS

Average tax refunds paid to Americans are up over 10% so far this filing season, the IRS reported. (Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images)

While the number of refunds has declined, the total amount refunded has risen 1.9% from nearly $16.7 billion to almost $17 billion, which helped boost the size of the average refund.

IRS data also showed that the average direct deposit refund rose by a similar amount when compared with this point of last year’s tax filing season, as the average direct deposit refund for the current year is $2,388 – up 10.3% from $2,165 at this time a year ago.

While refunds are rising thus far in the 2026 filing season when compared with a year ago, the number of tax returns received and processed has declined relative to last year.

TAX FILING SEASON IS OFFICIALLY HERE: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

The IRS reported Americans are filing tax returns at a slower pace so far this filing season. (J. David Ake/Getty Images)

The IRS reported that it has received nearly 22.4 million returns as of Feb. 6, a decrease of 5.2% from last year when almost 23.6 million returns were received at the same stage of the filing season.

The IRS offers an online “Where’s my refund?” tool for taxpayers to check on the status of their tax refund.

The IRS website said that processing a tax refund generally takes up to 21 days for e-filed returns, whereas returns sent by mail can take six weeks or more to reach the taxpayer. Refunds may also take longer if the return is in need of corrections or additional review.

BESSENT EXPECTS TAXPAYERS WILL SEE ‘VERY LARGE’ TAX REFUNDS EARLY NEXT YEAR

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said taxpayers will receive large refunds this filing season. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Taxpayers who are preparing to file their returns should consider setting up direct deposit with the IRS if they wish to receive their refund sooner.

Taxpayers who e-file their returns can typically see their refund status within 24 hours using the “Where’s my refund?” tool, which can provide refund information for not only the current year but also the past two years.

If a taxpayer needs to amend their return after filing, it can take longer to receive their tax return. Amended returns can take up to three weeks to appear in the IRS’ system and up to 16 weeks to process.

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The IRS also offers a “Where’s my amended return?” tool for taxpayers who submitted an amended return and want to track the status of their filing and any related refund.

Louis Schmid
Head of Investor Relations

Good afternoon, and welcome to Swisscom’s Full Year Results Presentation 2025. My name is Louis Schmid, Head of Investor Relations. And with me are our CEO, Christoph Aeschlimann; our CFO, Eugen Stermetz; and Walter Renna, CEO of Fastweb + Vodafone.

Let us now start the meeting with the agenda for today on Page 2. As you can see, Christoph presents the first 3 chapters: achievements, where he dives into some of last year’s highlights commercially, operationally and financially; strategy update, where he presents Swisscom’s framework, lead, innovate, perform to grow free cash flow; and the review of our business in Switzerland, covering achievements 2025 and our focus 2026.

Then Walter Renna, CEO of Fastweb + Vodafone, reviews our business in Italy. He will talk about the integration of Vodafone Italia and the industrial performance of our Italian business and its plans going forward. After Walter’s part, Eugen Stermetz, our CFO, will present the financial result 2025, including the guidance 2026. And in the wrap-up chapter, some final remarks from our CEO, Christoph Aeschlimann. After the presentation, we will move directly to the Q&A session.

With that, I would like to open the meeting and hand over to Christoph for his part.

Christoph Aeschlimann
CEO & Head of Swisscom – Switzerland

Thank you, Louis. Welcome to our 2025

Hiromi Oshima
General Manager of Finance & Accounting Division and In Charge of Group Finance & Accounting

I am Hiromi Oshima, Executive Officer in charge of Group Finance and Accounting at IHI. We will now present an overview of our financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025. The upper section shows the highlights for the third quarter fiscal year 2025.

Orders achieved JPY 1,364.8 billion, a record high for Q3, driven by expanding demand in the nuclear energy and other areas. Revenue decreased from the previous fiscal year to JPY 1,129.3 billion due to rebounding from the progress of large projects in the previous year and the impact of business divestitures, including material handling system. Operating profit was JPY 102.5 billion, remained at the same level as the previous year. Although revenue declined, we maintained the same level of profit as the previous fiscal year, which had achieved a record high. In addition, due to improvements in equity method investment income, including from Japan Marine United and others, profit attributable to owners of parent for the third quarter reached a record high.

The lower section shows forecast of fiscal year 2025. As demand continues to expand in the nuclear energy and other businesses in Energy business, we are revising our order forecast upward by JPY 90 billion. This fiscal year is the final year of our medium-term management plan. As I will explain later, while accelerating structural reforms, we expect to achieve record highs in orders, revenue, operating profit and profit attributable to owners of parent. We will firmly complete the structural reforms this year to prepare for the next fiscal year

Tania Archibald
MD, CEO & Director

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I’m Tania Archibald, BlueScope’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. And with me today is David Fallu, our Chief Financial Officer. Together, we’ll take you through our results materials before we take your questions.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the various lands on which we meet and work today and pay my respects to elders past and present. Before I go any further, I need to address the most important issue for our company. In November, a young contractor, Jack McGrath, tragically lost his life whilst working on the #6 blast furnace reline project at Port Kembla. The impact has been profound. A family lost someone they loved and the BlueScope community lost a colleague. I want to acknowledge how deeply this has affected everyone, our employees, our contractor partners and the local community.

The Safe Work New South Wales investigation into the incident is continuing, and we’re cooperating fully. I won’t comment further on the specifics. But what I will say is this, nothing matters more than the safety of