It's Tax Day. Here's how big the average tax refund is in 2026.
As another Tax Day arrives, the average refund this year is $3,462, up 11%, or around $350, from 2025, according to IRS data.
"Aggregate refunds are up, average refunds are up, and clearly millions, if not tens of millions, of taxpayers are claiming one of the new deductions" under the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" enacted last year, Andrew Lautz, director of tax policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank, told CBS News.
Deductions reduce a person's taxable income, which typically means they end up owing less to the IRS.
Lautz said the think tank is seeing many people take advantage of changes eliminating federal income taxes on tips and overtime. According to a March survey of 1,200 taxpayers by the Bipartisan Policy Center, about a third of respondents said they received tipped income, overtime pay or both.
How many people get refunds
Last year, 104 million taxpayers, or 63% of filers, received refunds, according to the IRS. So far this year, nearly 70 million filers have received tax returns, agency data shows. Refunds will continue going out after Tax Day, but Lautz said he expects the average refund size to remain relatively steady.
Investment bank Piper Sandler earlier this year projected that tax refunds would increase by as much as $1,000 in 2026.
Don Schneider, deputy head of U.S. policy at Piper Sandler, called that larger amount a "hypothetical maximum" that assumes all filers get a refund. The $106 billion in retroactive tax relief from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act he projects will flow to Americans this year won't just show up in the form of tax refunds — it will also lower what people owe in taxes, he noted.
"If we're just going to fixate on the refunds themselves or the average size, we're going to miss half of the story," Schneider told CBS News. "So we need to look at the reduction in taxes that people otherwise owe. And all of this is suggestive of tax relief probably being stronger than expected when we consider more overtime, more tips, etcetera."
How will Americans spend tax refunds?
As of March 24, 14% of U.S. taxpayers reported receiving a "significantly" larger refund this year, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center's taxpayer survey.
Many Americans already have a sense of how to use the cash. Over one-third of Americans plan to use their IRS refund to reduce their debt, while about 13% expect to put the money toward savings, according to a Bank of America Global Research survey.
Some may also end up using it for everyday expenses like gas, which has surged by $1.14 per gallon as the Iran war drives up global oil prices. As of Tuesday, the national average for a gallon of regular gas was $4.12, according to AAA.
Economists from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research estimate that the average U.S. household will spend an additional $740 on gas this year due to the jump in global oil prices, double the average increase in refund sizes so far this year.
