Average U.S. Tax Return Amount Falls Slightly

The U.S. tax filing season 2025 is opening on January 27 and the IRS is expecting 140 million tax returns to be filed by the April 15 deadline. While tax season is often associated with stress as the cutoff date nears, it can be lucrative. As of December's data, last year's tax seasons saw an average refund amount for individual income tax returns of $3,138. This average had reached a high in the filing year of 2022 (for the income year 2021). Since then, it has decreased as pandemic tax benefits have expired. Average refund amounts are still up slightly compared to the 2010, however.

The most obvious change in tax refunds during the pandemic is just a statistical blip: During 2020 and 2021, the IRS was behind on processing refunds for the years 2019 and 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak. If fewer returns have been processed, their levels can become not comparable at the same point in time across years. As for IRS tax refunds, amounts usually appear lower if processing has lagged.