By the time the IRS closed the books on its final weekly tally of the 2026 filing season, the count that ran through May 8, the average individual refund stood at $3,276, up $337 from the $2,939 average at the same point in the 2025 season. That comparison comes from the agency’s own season-ending data table, not a fresh announcement, and it is worth reading as a snapshot of how the 2026 season closed rather than as news about a refund arriving today.
What the final weekly table actually recorded
The comparison covers cumulative totals through May 8 in 2026 against the same week of the prior year, and it was the last weekly release the agency published for the season. Average refund: $3,276 in 2026 versus $2,939 in 2025, an 11.5% increase. Total number of refunds: 99,138,000, up 6% from 93,569,000. Total dollars refunded: $324.757 billion, up 18.1% from $274.979 billion — a bigger jump in total dollars than in refund count, which is the arithmetic signature of a typical refund that grew, rather than simply more people getting one.
These numbers come from the IRS’s own filing season statistics for the week ending May 8, 2026, the final entry in a weekly series the agency also compiles into a broader season-by-season statistics archive for comparing years against each other.
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Direct deposit refunds moved even more than the overall average
Filers who chose direct deposit saw a larger jump than the overall population: an average direct-deposit refund of $3,273 in 2026, up from $3,034 in 2025, a 7.9% increase. But it is the volume, not just the size, that stands out — 99,225,000 direct-deposit refunds went out in 2026 against 86,937,000 in 2025, a 14.1% increase that outpaced the 6% growth in total refunds. That gap reflects both current-year returns and a portion of prior-year returns processed during the same window, and it shows a filing population moving further away from paper refund checks than a single year’s average dollar figure can capture on its own.
A season with fewer returns but a bigger average check
The total number of returns the IRS received actually slipped slightly, from 145,855,000 to 144,992,000, a 0.6% decline, while the number of returns processed edged up 0.3% to 143,925,000. Processing outpacing receipt by that margin suggests the agency was also working through returns held over from earlier in the season, on top of keeping pace with what came in fresh by early May. That combination, fewer returns filed but more of them refunded and refunded for more money, means the increase in the average refund was not simply a function of more people filing. Something about what a typical 2025 return reported changed the math, not just how many people showed up to file one.
How the returns themselves got filed
The same table breaks down how filers prepared their returns, and the shift there was smaller but still real. E-filed returns rose to 141,046,000 from 139,496,000, a 1.1% increase, with self-prepared e-filed returns growing faster, up 1.7% to 65,730,000, than returns e-filed through a tax professional, up 0.6% to 75,316,000. That is a slightly larger share of filers doing their own return electronically rather than paying someone else to do it, even in a season where the total number of returns filed slipped.
What the data doesn’t explain on its own
The IRS’s release lists the totals without explaining why the average moved as much as it did, and this article will not manufacture a cause the agency did not state. What the numbers do show is that growth in dollars refunded ran well ahead of growth in refund count, an 18.1% increase in total dollars against a 6% increase in the number of refunds, which mathematically requires the typical refund to have grown rather than just the number of people receiving one. Tax preparers and coverage of the 2026 season pointed to a round of new deductions that first applied to 2025 returns as a likely contributor. The IRS explains generally how it calculates refund amounts as the difference between tax withheld or paid during the year and the final liability calculated on the return, so a new deduction lowering that final liability without a matching change in withholding is one mechanical way an average refund rises even when the number of returns filed barely moves. The statistics release itself does not attribute the increase to any specific provision.
Where the traffic went while all of this was happening
One more figure from the same table hints at how filers behaved during the season: visits to IRS.gov jumped from 351,491,000 to 571,527,000, a 62.6% increase, even as the number of returns filed slipped slightly. More traffic against fewer returns suggests filers spent more time checking refund status, reading guidance, or researching the year’s changes before submitting, which is consistent with a season where the numbers ahead of filing warranted a longer look.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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