How to update your address, name or bank details with the IRS
Form 8822 moves your address, the Social Security Administration handles a name change first, and bank details can only be fixed before the return goes in.
Quick answers
- How do I tell the IRS I have moved?
- Put the new address on your next return, or send Form 8822. You may also write or call, giving your full name, your old and new addresses, and your taxpayer number.
- Do I change my name with the IRS or with Social Security?
- Social Security first. The IRS matches the name on your return against the name on your Social Security card, so filing under a name the card does not show causes delays.
- Can I change the bank account after I have filed?
- The account on a filed return cannot be edited. If the return has not posted yet you can ask the IRS to stop the deposit, and if the bank returns the money a paper check goes to your last known address.
The IRS will take a new address four different ways, but a new name has to reach the Social Security Administration first. Bank details are different again: once a return is filed, the account on it cannot be changed.
Change your address
- If you have not filed yet, enter the new address on the return. When the return is processed, the IRS updates its records from it and nothing further is needed.
- If you have already filed, complete Form 8822, Change of Address, and send it to the address shown on the form itself. A business address goes on Form 8822-B instead.
- Whichever route you take, give your full name, your old and new addresses, and your taxpayer number, meaning a Social Security number, an individual taxpayer identification number, or an employer identification number where a business is involved. A signed written statement carrying the same details works in place of the form, and you can also give the same details by calling the IRS.
- If you filed a joint return and still live together, provide the information and the signatures for both spouses. If you filed jointly and now have separate residences, each of you notifies the IRS of your own new address.
- Tell the post office that serves your old address as well. Forwarding helps with ordinary mail, but not every post office forwards government checks, so the IRS still needs to hear from you directly.
- Allow four to six weeks for the change to be fully processed.
Change your name
- Report the change to the Social Security Administration first. The name the IRS matches your return against is the name on your Social Security card.
- Wait until the card shows the new name before you file under it. If the card has not caught up by the time the return is due, file under your former name so the return is not held up.
- Ask your employer to correct a Form W-2 or Form 1099 that arrived in the old name. If a corrected form comes back to you, include a copy with your return.
- Report all of your income on one return, even if two employers used two different versions of your name during the year.
- If the problem is a misspelling rather than a change of name, you can correct it when you file, or by calling the IRS.
Bank details: fix them before you file, not after
Verify the account and routing numbers with your bank, then check them against the return before you sign it and send it in. That is the whole defense, because the numbers on a filed return cannot be edited afterward. Nothing in an online account changes where a refund is already headed.
When it does go wrong, there are three outcomes and only the first is quick. If the return has not yet posted to the IRS system, you can ask the IRS to stop the direct deposit, so call as soon as you notice. If the financial institution rejects the deposit or recovers the money and sends it back, the IRS generally issues a paper check to your last known address, which is one more reason the address above matters. And if the money has gone and the bank will not release it, there is no lever the IRS can pull to make it; the argument becomes one between you, the bank and whoever holds that account.
Two standing rules sit behind all of this. A refund belongs only in a United States account that you own, that your spouse owns, or that the two of you hold jointly, which rules out routing it to a preparer or a relative. And a single account or prepaid debit card will accept only three electronic refunds, with anything past that arriving as a paper check. How refunds work covers the rest of the journey.
If it doesn't work
- Four to six weeks have gone by and the new address still has not taken. Send Form 8822 if you only called or wrote, and keep proof of the mailing.
- The return was rejected because the name does not match the Social Security card. File under your former name for now, and file under the new one once the card shows it.
- The refund went to an account you no longer hold. Contact the financial institution first; if two weeks pass with no result, file Form 3911, Taxpayer Statement Regarding Refund, to start a trace.
- Someone tried to change your address on your behalf. Unauthorized third parties cannot change a taxpayer's address, and an authorized representative has to attach a power of attorney or Form 2848 to the request.
- You moved after filing and a paper check is chasing the old address. Tell the IRS and the post office, then read refund delays for what a reissued check involves.
What you'll need
- Your old address and your new one, written out in full.
- Your Social Security number or individual taxpayer identification number, and your spouse's name and number if the last return was joint.
- The Social Security card showing the new name, where the name is what changed.
- The routing and account numbers, read off a statement or confirmed with the bank rather than recalled from memory.