'Processed with refund due' means the Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) has finished checking your return under section 143(1) and confirmed a refund amount — the money itself follows as a separate step once it clears your bank account, and that leg can still fail if your bank details aren't in order. 'Under processing' simply means CPC hasn't finished that check yet; it has up to 9 months from the end of the financial year in which you filed to send an intimation, so a return sitting at this status for weeks is not necessarily stuck.
Most refund problems trace to one of three things: the return was never e-verified within the 30-day window, the bank account credited was not pre-validated or linked to PAN, or the refund was adjusted against tax owed for another year under section 245. Each has a specific fix on the e-filing portal rather than a wait-and-watch approach.
What each ITR status label means
The e-filing portal moves a return through a small set of labelled states after you submit it. Not every return sees every label — a straightforward return with no mismatch goes from submitted to processed with nothing in between.
| Status shown | What it means |
|---|---|
| Submitted and pending for e-verification | Filed but not yet e-verified or confirmed by ITR-V; CPC will not start processing until this is done. |
| Successfully e-Verified | Verification is complete but CPC has not yet finished processing the return. |
| Under processing | CPC is checking the return under section 143(1); it has up to 9 months from the end of the filing year to finish. |
| Processed with refund due | Processing is complete and a refund amount has been determined; the credit itself is a separate, later step. |
| Refund Issued | The determined refund has been credited or dispatched to the bank account on file. |
| Refund Failed | The credit attempt did not go through — usually an inoperative PAN or invalid/unvalidated bank details. |
| Partially / Fully Adjusted | The refund (or part of it) was set off against an outstanding demand from another year under section 245, instead of being paid out. |
| Processed with no demand no refund | Processing is complete and the return matched — no refund and nothing owed. |
| Defective (u/s 139(9)) | CPC found the return incomplete or inconsistent; you get a set window to fix it or it is treated as never filed. |
| Case transferred to Assessing Officer | CPC has handed the return to your jurisdictional AO for manual handling instead of finishing it centrally. |
E-verify within 30 days, or the return doesn't count
For returns filed on or after 1 August 2022, you must e-verify the return — or send the signed physical ITR-V by speed post to CPC Bengaluru — within 30 days of filing. This followed CBDT Notification No. 5/2022 dated 29 July 2022, which cut the earlier 120-day window down to 30 days. Returns transmitted before that date still fall under the old 120-day rule.
Miss the 30-day window and the date you eventually e-verify becomes the deemed date of filing, with every late-filing consequence under the Act applying from that later date. A return that stays unverified past the window is treated as if it was never filed at all — which also means no refund processing begins on it. If your status has been stuck at 'submitted and pending for e-verification' for any length of time, verifying it (Aadhaar OTP, net banking, EVC or DSC) is the fix, not waiting.
Why 'under processing' can sit there for months
CPC can issue a section 143(1) intimation — the notice that confirms your figures and states any refund — any time up to 9 months from the end of the financial year in which the return was filed. For example, a return filed on 20 July 2023 for FY 2022-23 could still validly receive its intimation as late as 31 December 2024. This 9-month ceiling replaced a 12-month one under the Finance Act, 2021.
That is a statutory outer limit, not a turnaround promise — most refunds move faster, but a return flagged for a data mismatch against Form 26AS, the Annual Information Statement (AIS) or the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), or one selected for manual review because of an unusually high refund claim, can legitimately sit at 'under processing' for an extended stretch within that window. If the 9-month window lapses with no intimation at all, the original ITR acknowledgement itself is treated as the deemed intimation — in effect, your return as filed is accepted without adjustment.
Refund shows failed, or hasn't arrived after "processed with refund due"
A refund is paid only into a bank account that is both linked to your PAN and pre-validated on the e-filing portal — pre-validation runs the account through your bank via OTP on your registered mobile number or net-banking authentication. The most common reasons a refund attempt fails are bank details that don't match PAN records, an account that was never pre-validated, an inactive or closed account, or an inoperative PAN because it isn't linked to Aadhaar.
A failed validation shows under My Bank Account > Failed Bank Accounts on the portal, with the result also sent to your registered mobile and email; you can resubmit it via Re-Validate. Once the correct account is pre-validated, file a Refund Reissue Request under Services > Refund Reissue on the e-filing portal, selecting the newly validated account — this does not require filing anything afresh.
Interest on a delayed refund (section 244A)
Section 244A entitles you to simple interest of 0.5% per month (or part of a month) on the refund amount — an effective 6% a year, not compounded. For refunds from excess advance tax or TDS/TCS, this interest runs from 1 April of the relevant assessment year if you filed on or before the due date, or from your actual filing date if you filed late, up to the date the refund is granted. For a refund of self-assessment tax, interest instead runs from the later of the date you paid the tax or the date you filed the return.
Interest does not apply below a threshold tied to the tax determined on regular assessment, and any delay caused by you — wrong bank or PAN details, missing schedules, or a slow response to a departmental query — is excluded from the interest period. Where a refund follows an appellate order and is delayed beyond the time allowed to give effect to it, an extra 3% a year applies on top of the usual rate for that stretch of delay.
Refund adjusted against an old demand, or smaller than claimed
If you owe tax for another year, CPC can set off your refund against that outstanding demand under section 245 — but only after sending you a prior intimation. Historically you get 30 days on the portal to respond, agreeing, disagreeing with reasons, or partially agreeing; if you don't respond in time, the demand is adjusted against the refund by default, with interest on the demand factored in. Separately, CBDT tightened the department's own side of this: from mid-2023, the jurisdictional Assessing Officer's deadline to respond to CPC's section 245 reference was cut from 30–45 days down to 21 days, specifically to unblock refunds stuck in demand-adjustment limbo faster.
A refund that lands smaller than what you claimed is usually a TDS/TCS credit mismatch — tax credit you claimed that doesn't fully show up in Form 26AS or AIS, often because the deductor filed late or with an error. Once the deductor's data is corrected, a section 154 rectification request (for a 'mistake apparent from the record') fixes this without needing a revised return. If a processing dispute or a demand adjustment still isn't resolved, the Grievances (e-Nivaran) module on the e-filing portal covers complaints against e-filing, CPC-ITR, CPC-TDS and the jurisdictional Assessing Officer.
One reported change — the taxpayer's own section 245 response window possibly shortening to 15 days for AY 2024-25 onward — appears in only one secondary source and is not confirmed against a primary CBDT circular; treat the 30-day figure as the safe working assumption until that is verified.
Checking refund status outside the e-filing login
Besides the return's own status page after logging in, the e-filing portal's 'Know Your Refund Status' screen (PAN, Assessment Year, OTP) shows the same lifecycle status. The Protean (formerly NSDL) TIN portal offers an independent check by PAN and Assessment Year, but it only reflects a refund roughly 10 days after the Assessing Officer has sent it to the Refund Banker — checking it earlier than that will show nothing new.
Primary sources
The dates and fees on this page are read off the statute and CBDT’s own notifications and the e-filing portal, not copied from other guides. You can check every one of them:
- CBDT Notification No. 5/2022 dated 29-07-2022 — e-verification/ITR-V time limit reduced to 30 days, under Rule 14 of the CPR Scheme, 2011
- Section 143(1), Income-tax Act, 1961 — 9-month intimation time limit (as amended by the Finance Act, 2021)
- Refund Status User Manual — Income Tax Department
- Bank-account pre-validation and Failed Bank Accounts — Income Tax Department FAQ
- Section 244A, Income-tax Act, 1961 — interest on refunds
- Section 245, Income-tax Act, 1961 — set-off of refunds against tax remaining payable
Verified against the Income-tax Act, 1961, the rules and CBDT notifications cited above as of September 2026. Your exact position depends on your entity and any notifications or circulars issued since — we confirm it for you, and always recommend checking the official Income Tax e-filing portal. CapEasy is a private consultancy and is not affiliated with any government authority. This page is a guide, not legal advice.