Refund Still Not Received for AY 2025-26? Know Reasons Why 61 Lakh ITRs Are Still Pending to be Processed

The statutory due date to file an income tax return (ITR) was September 16, 2025, and now even the due date for filing a belated return for FY 2024-25, i.e., December 31, 2025, has ended, and taxpayers are still awaiting their returns to get processed. Many are nervous while checking their refund status.

According to the data available on the official portal of the Income Tax Department, in the financial year 2024-25, approximately 8.80 crore returns were filed in total. From which, around 8.66 crore returns have been successfully verified as of now, and nearly 8.04 crore returns have been processed. However, there are still around 63 lakh taxpayers whose returns are pending to get processed, and several are still awaiting their tax refunds.

Now, the key question here is why these refunds are getting delayed this financial year. Several experts say that this delay is being deliberately done and not due to system limitations.

Delays are quite common, and the law allows for them. Tax experts say that if your tax return is still pending after December 31, it does not automatically mean there is a problem. Under the Income-tax Act, the Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) gets up to nine months from the end of the financial year to process tax returns. So, for returns filed in AY 2025-26 (for income earned in FY 2024-25), the tax department has time until December 31, 2026, to complete the processing. As per the information, 90% of the verified returns have been successfully processed as of now.

Now, the tax department has to access large third-party data like TDS filings, Annual Information Statements (AIS), Form 26AS, bank data, mutual fund transactions, and SFT reports. Sometimes, information reported in ITRs by the taxpayers does not fully match this data; the returns then automatically come under the scanner of the tax department. This ultimately leads to slowing down the processing.

Another key reason why refunds are delayed this FY is the recent CBDT’s “nudge” campaign, launched in December 2025. In this campaign, the tax department is informing taxpayers through SMS and emails that discrepancies have been noticed in their returns, and they still have the opportunity to file a revised or updated return. However, the deadline for filing a belated return has also ended now.

The message read, “AY: 2025-26 filed by you. Processing of the said return was held as it was identified under the risk management process on account of certain discrepancies in the claim of refund. An email with details has also been sent to your registered email address.

As the time limit for filing the revised return of income for A.Y. 2025-26 will expire on 31/12/2025, you are requested to avail yourself of the opportunity to file the revised return.”

Here are the categories of taxpayers whose refunds have been stuck this FY2024-25:

• Taxpayers whose bank accounts are not pre-validated.
• Taxpayers whose names are mentioned in bank accounts do not match those mentioned in their PANs.
• Taxpayers whose IFSC codes are noted to be incorrect.
• The accounts mentioned in the ITRs are not found to be in existence.