IRS data from the sixth week of the tax filing season—the week ending March 7, 2025—continues to suggest a sluggish tax season. Numbers for tax filing and processing of tax returns dipped again, a trend that hasn’t changed since the season opened on January 27, 2025.
Filing and Processing Dips
Early filing data reflects a continued downturn in tax returns received compared to the prior year. The IRS received 62,761,000 individual income tax returns as of March 7, 2025, compared to 61,429,000 as of March 8, 2024. That’s a drop of 2.1 % fewer returns and part of a bigger pattern—there has not been a single week in the filing season to date with an uptick.
The data shows that the IRS has processed 51,819,000 individual income tax returns as of February 28, 2025, compared to 53,231,000 by March 1, 2024. That’s a decrease of 2.7%.
Most of those returns were e-filed. In 2025, the IRS received 59,872,000 e-filed returns, compared to 61,165,000 in 2024. That’s a drop of 2.1%.
Most tax professionals will e-file your return, suggesting it’s more secure and more likely to be accurate. As National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins put it when recommending e-filing: “Paper is the IRS’ kryptonite.”
About 52% of those e-filed returns were self-prepared, compared to 48% of e-filed returns received from tax professionals. In January, the IRS noted that it expected more than half of all tax returns to be filed this year with the help of a tax professional.
If you don’t want to pay a tax pro or for tax software, consider the IRS Free File program. (You can see all the Free File option here.) Be sure to review the offers—some, but not all, partners offer free prep and filing for state returns, so check the fine print before you start your return. Any state preparation or non-qualifying fees are required to be disclosed on the company’s Free File landing page. Free File options, which are offered through private software companies, are more limited if your income is higher or your return more complicated.
The IRS is also offering Direct File, a free and secure option for taxpayers with simple tax situations in participating states (in 2025, Direct File is available in Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming). Overall, 62% of Americans live in states offering Direct File.
Taxpayer eligibility to participate in the 2024 pilot program was limited to taxpayers with certain types of income, credits, and deductions—taxpayers with relatively simple returns. For Filing Season 2025, Direct File will support additional income types and credits for individuals who meet other eligibility requirements, including the Credit for Other Dependents, Child and Dependent Care Credit, Premium Tax Credit, Retirement Savings Contributions Credit, as well as the deduction for Health Savings Accounts.
Web Visits
Web visits to IRS.gov were also sharply down, dropping 44.0% compared to 2024. There have been 210,850,000 visits to the website as of March 7, 2025, compared to 376,622,000 visits by March 8, 2024.
The downturn in web visits may reflect the fact that the website has not been regularly updated—there have been only a dozen or so press releases posted since the season opened.
Taxpayers seeking the status of their tax refund may click over to the website to check the status of their tax refunds using the Where’s My Refund tool?. The IRS says that Where’s My Refund? remains the best way to check the status of a refund. It provides taxpayers with three key pieces of information: receipt of your federal tax return, approval of your tax refund, and issuing date of your approved tax refund. I
Refund status information is typically available within 24 hours after the IRS receives your e-filed tax return for the current tax year, three to four days after receipt of your e-filed tax return or four weeks after mailing your paper return.
The IRS only updates the tool once a day, usually overnight.
Tax Refunds
The data points in the tax season filing statistics that are seeing upticks are related to tax refunds.
The total number of tax refunds edged up to 43,647,000 in 2025, compared to 43,020,000 in the same period last year.
The average tax refund is also up: $3,324 per taxpayer as of March 7, 2025, compared to $3,145 as of March 8, 2024, a boost of 5.7%. The average refund issued by direct deposit increased to $3,379 in 2025 compared to $3,209 for the same time period last year.
The law requires the IRS to hold refunds tied to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the ACTC until mid-February. The rule applies to the entire refund, even the portion not associated with the EITC and ACTC. That means if you qualify for the refundable credit, you’ll have to wait until the IRS can release it. As a result, early EITC/ACTC filers should have begun to see tax refunds around March 3, 2025.
The IRS expects more than 140 million individual tax returns for tax year 2024 to be filed ahead of the April 15 federal deadline—we have just under a month to go. Check back for more details as the season rolls on.