When can I file, when is it due, and when does the refund come?
The season calendar for a 2025 return: when the IRS started accepting returns, the April deadline, the extension date, refund holds, and next season.
Quick answers
- When did the IRS start accepting 2025 returns?
- The IRS opened the season in late January and began processing returns for the 2025 tax year then. Returns sent to a preparer or to software earlier sat in a queue until that day. The opening day for the next season is announced each January.
- Is the extension deadline the same as the payment deadline?
- No. An extension moves only the date the return is due, by six months. Anything you owe is still due on the April date, and interest runs from that date whether or not you extended.
- Should I file as soon as I have my W-2?
- Usually yes, but wait until every form has arrived. Brokerage and marketplace statements often land later than a W-2, and a return filed without one of them usually has to be amended.
The IRS opened the 2026 filing season in late January, and the return for the 2025 tax year came due that April. Everything else on the calendar hung off those two dates, including the extension, the estimated payments and the day a refund could realistically arrive. Those dates have now passed, so if you are reading with the next return in mind, the last section below sets out what next season looks like.
| Day the IRS began accepting 2025 returns | January 26, 2026 | IRS news release, "IRS announces first day of 2026 filing season" |
|---|---|---|
| Form 1040 due date | April 15, 2026 | 2025 Instructions for Form 1040, When To File |
| Extended Form 1040 due date | October 15, 2026 | Form 4868 |
| Fourth-quarter 2025 estimated payment due | January 15, 2026 | 2025 Form 1040-ES |
The four dates that matter
The season opened on January 26, 2026, which is the day the IRS began accepting and processing returns for the 2025 tax year. Returns handed to a preparer or finished in software before that day were held in a queue and released when the door opened, so an early submission bought a place in line rather than an earlier answer.
The return itself was due April 15, 2026. That was the date the paperwork had to be in and the date any balance had to be paid, and the two were never separable. For anyone who could not finish by then, Form 4868 moved the filing date to October 15, 2026.
One date sits behind the others. The last estimated payment for the 2025 tax year fell due on January 15, 2026, before the season opened at all. If you have income no employer withholds from, that payment was your final chance to even up the year before the return does the arithmetic.
Filing early is about the queue, not the money
Employers generally have to furnish W-2s by February 2, 2026, and payers generally have to furnish 1099-NEC forms by February 2, 2026. Brokerage statements, marketplace statements and corrected forms often land later than either.
That timing is why the return filed in the first week of the season is the return most likely to be amended. Nothing about early filing is wrong, and a return sent early with everything in hand is genuinely first in line. A return sent early with a form still in the post is a return you will be redoing on Form 1040-X, and the second version takes far longer to process than the first.
What an extension actually buys
An extension buys six more months to file and nothing at all to pay. The IRS separates the two obligations completely: extra time for the paperwork does not come with extra time for the money, and Form 4868 itself has to be in by the original April due date to work.
So a balance you cannot cover is still due in April, and interest generally runs from that date whether or not you extended. Filing the return on time and dealing with the balance separately is almost always cheaper than extending in the hope the money appears. There is a set of arrangements for that situation, covered in You owe more than you can pay right now.
When the refund arrives
File electronically, get the return right, ask for direct deposit, and the great majority of refunds go out inside 21 days. The IRS's own tracker treats three weeks from the day you sent an electronic return as the point at which a status is worth chasing.
Paper is a different world. A mailed return takes about four weeks before a status appears at all, and the IRS asks you to allow six or more weeks from the day it received the return before chasing the refund itself. A paper check then adds mail time on top of that. If speed matters at all, the combination that produces it is e-file plus direct deposit. What the refund actually is, and how withholding and credits produce one, is covered in Where your refund comes from.
The mid-February hold
By law, the IRS holds the refund on any return claiming the earned income credit or the additional child tax credit until mid-February. The hold covers the whole refund, not only the part attributable to the credit, and filing in January does not shorten it.
Nothing about the hold means anything is wrong with the return. The earned income credit explains who the credit reaches, and Refund delayed covers the holds that are worth worrying about.
When a deadline falls on a weekend
One rule sits behind every date above. None of these deadlines is allowed to land on a day the mail does not run and the offices are shut, so a due date that would otherwise fall on a weekend or a legal holiday slides forward to the next working day instead.
That is worth knowing because it moves quietly. A deadline you memorized one year can sit two or three days later the next, and a return mailed on the day you remember can arrive after a deadline that had in fact shifted. Check the date the IRS publishes for the year in front of you rather than working from memory.
What next season looks like
For the 2026 tax year, the statutory dates are already fixed: the return is due April 15, 2027, and an extension would move filing to October 15, 2027.
The opening day is the one date nobody can give you yet. The IRS announces it each January, usually a week or two before the season starts, and there is no way to file before it. Plan the year around the April date, gather documents through February, and treat the opening announcement as a starting gun rather than a surprise.