How to pay the IRS: Direct Pay, card, check, or a plan
The free way to pay from a bank account, what a card costs, how to pay by check or cash, and what to do when the balance is more than you have on hand.
Quick answers
- What is the cheapest way to pay the IRS?
- Direct Pay from a checking or savings account. It is free, needs no sign-in, and gives a confirmation number. Cards go through outside processors that charge a percentage of the payment.
- Who do I make the check out to?
- The U.S. Treasury. Write your name, address, phone number, the tax year, the form or notice number and the taxpayer identification number on the memo line so the payment is credited to the right account and year.
- Can I pay the IRS in cash?
- Yes, through an authorized processor and a participating retailer. You register online, get a barcode by email, then hand over the cash in a shop. There is a small fee and a cap on each payment.
Paying from a bank account is free, needs no sign-in and gives you a confirmation number. Every other route either costs a fee or takes longer, and what most often goes wrong is a payment applied to the wrong year.
Pick the right reason and year first
Every payment to the IRS carries three things: a reason, a form, and a tax period. Get any of them wrong and the money still arrives, but it sits against the wrong year while the balance you meant to clear keeps running interest and penalties.
So decide before you start. The reason is usually the balance due on a return, an amount demanded by a notice, an extension payment or an estimated payment. The form is almost always 1040 for an individual. The period is the year the tax belongs to, not the year you are paying in: the balance from a 2025 return is due by April 15, 2026, and a payment made that spring is still a 2025 payment.
Pay from a bank account with Direct Pay
- Go to irs.gov and open Direct Pay with bank account. There is no sign-in and no fee.
- Choose the payment type, then the reason for the payment, then the tax year. The Reason for Payment and Apply Payment to choices are what decide where the money lands.
- Verify your identity from an earlier return. Enter your name and, where it is asked for, your address exactly as they appear on the return you are verifying against.
- Enter the payment details: the bank routing and account numbers, the amount, and the date you want it taken.
- Review the entries and sign.
- Save the confirmation the site gives you at the end, and keep the confirmation number with your records.
Pay by check or money order
- Write the check, money order or cashier's check out to the U.S. Treasury, and to nothing else.
- On the memo line write your name and address, a daytime phone number, the tax year, the form the payment relates to or the notice number, and the Social Security number, employer identification number or individual taxpayer identification number of whoever should be credited.
- If the payment travels with a paper return, include Form 1040-V, Payment Voucher.
- Send it by regular mail, which is what the IRS asks for.
- Keep a copy of the check and the voucher.
Pay cash at a retail partner
- Open the Pay with cash at a retail partner page and choose one of the authorized processors.
- Enter the tax form, the tax year and your details, then select Pay With Cash.
- Wait for the confirmation email carrying a barcode.
- Take the barcode and the cash to a participating shop. There is a flat fee of $1.50 for each payment, and each one is capped at $500, though there is no daily limit on how many you make.
- Keep the receipt the shop gives you as your proof of payment.
If it doesn't work
- Direct Pay will not verify you. Enter the name and address exactly as they appear on the return you chose, or pick a different year and use the details from that one instead.
- You have not filed in six or more years. With no recent return to check you against, the IRS points you to another method, so use the online account, a card processor or a check.
- The payment is larger than Direct Pay will take. Very large payments go through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System or a same-day wire at your bank.
- You need that system and do not have it yet. Enrollment takes the IRS up to five business days, so it is not a way to meet a deadline that falls tomorrow.
What you'll need
- The bank routing and account numbers, or a debit or credit card.
- A prior-year return to verify your identity against.
- The tax year and the form number the payment belongs to.
- The notice number, if you are paying an amount a letter asked for.
Cards, and what they cost
The IRS does not take card payments itself. It authorizes outside processors, and the fee is theirs rather than the government's: a percentage of the payment, from about two and a half percent to just under three percent, with a minimum charge that makes small payments proportionally worse.
That makes a card the expensive way to settle a balance. It can still be the right one if the alternative is a missed deadline, but paying by card to earn points rarely covers the fee, and paying a balance you cannot clear is usually better handled by a plan than by moving the debt to a credit card.
When the money actually posts
Direct Pay credits you for the date you selected, even though the withdrawal itself can take up to two business days to go through. Submit one after eight in the evening Eastern time for the same day and your online account will usually date it the next business day instead.
So a payment made close to a notice date can cross the letter in the post. Keep the confirmation number, check the online account before you act on a notice you have already answered, and do not pay twice because nothing has appeared yet.
If you cannot pay it all
Pay what you can and arrange the rest rather than sending nothing, because penalties and interest run on the unpaid balance either way. The Online Payment Agreement application sets up a short-term arrangement or a longer monthly plan without a phone call, and You owe more than you can pay right now covers the limits, the fees and which one to ask for.