How to raise a refund reissue request on the e-filing portal when an income tax refund failed to credit

A refund that shows as "issued" in your ITR processing but never lands in your bank account is one of the most common post-filing frustrations of the 2025 filing season. The Income Tax Department processes the return, raises the refund, and dispatches it to State Bank of India (the refund banker) for credit, but the transfer bounces because the destination account was closed, the IFSC changed after a bank merger, the name on the account did not match the PAN, or the account was never pre-validated. The fix is not to file a fresh return; it is to raise a Refund Reissue Request on the e-filing portal, and the official Income Tax Department user manual sets out the exact path. This Q&A walks through that process for a salaried taxpayer with a worked example for Assessment Year 2026-27.

The Scenario

Imagine Rohan, a salaried employee in Pune, filed his return for FY 2025-26 (AY 2026-27) and the intimation under Section 143(1) confirmed a refund of Rs 18,100. Three weeks later the "Refund Status" on the portal read "Refund Failure - account closed", and no money reached him. Rohan had switched banks in March 2026 and the old account quoted in his ITR was shut. His refund of Rs 18,100 is not lost; it is parked with the Department awaiting a valid, validated bank account to receive it.

This is the single most frequent reason a refund fails: per the Income Tax Department's Refund Reissue user manual, a refund can only be credited to a bank account that has been pre-validated on the portal. If validation lapses, the IFSC is stale after a bank merger (several public-sector mergers since 2020 changed thousands of IFSC codes), or the account is dormant, the credit is rejected and the taxpayer must initiate a reissue. The good news: there is no fee, no fresh ITR, and the process is fully online with e-Verification.

Statutory Answer

The right to a refund flows from Section 237 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, which entitles a person to a refund of the excess amount once the Assessing Officer (or, in practice, the Centralised Processing Centre) is satisfied that the tax paid exceeds the tax chargeable. Where a return is processed under Section 143(1) and a refund is determined, the amount becomes legally due to the taxpayer; a failed bank credit does not extinguish that entitlement. You can read the bare provision on the Government of India's official statute repository at indiacode.nic.in.

Crucially, the law also protects you for the delay. Section 244A of the Income-tax Act, 1961 provides for interest on a delayed refund at the statutory rate of one-half per cent for every month or part of a month, computed in the manner the section prescribes. So while a reissue costs nothing, the waiting period is not entirely uncompensated where the delay is not attributable to you. The procedural mechanism for collecting a stuck refund is the Refund Reissue Request, documented in the Income Tax Department's official user manual at incometax.gov.in.

According to that user manual, the navigation is fixed: Login > Services > Refund Reissue > Create Refund Reissue Request. The portal then displays the failed refund record. You select the record, choose a validated (pre-validated) bank account in which you want the refund credited, click Proceed to Verification, and then e-Verify using your preferred method (Aadhaar OTP, net banking, or a Digital Signature Certificate). On success the portal shows a confirmation message with a Transaction ID, and a confirmation is sent to your registered email address and mobile number.

The table below summarises the most common failure reasons recognised by the Refund Banker and the corrective action each requires before a reissue will succeed.

Worked Resolution

Let us make Rohan's numbers concrete so you can see how the refund itself arose, why Rs 18,100 was due, and how the reissue restores it. Rohan's gross salary for FY 2025-26 was Rs 14,00,000. Under the new tax regime he claims the standard deduction of Rs 75,000 (the new-regime standard deduction is Rs 75,000 for FY 2025-26), leaving a taxable income of Rs 13,25,000. Because his income exceeds Rs 12,00,000, he is not eligible for the Section 87A rebate (which under the new regime for FY 2025-26 is up to Rs 60,000 only where total income does not exceed Rs 12,00,000).

Applying the FY 2025-26 new-regime slabs to Rs 13,25,000 gives the following build-up. You can reproduce every figure with Oquilia's Income Tax Calculator and compare regimes on the Old vs New Regime Calculator.

Now suppose Rohan's employer and bank between them deducted Rs 1,00,000 in TDS during FY 2025-26, reflected in his Form 26AS and AIS. His total tax due is Rs 81,900, so the excess of Rs 1,00,000 minus Rs 81,900 equals a refund of Rs 18,100 under Section 237. You can sanity-check withholding against your payslips using the TDS Calculator. When that Rs 18,100 bounced because his old account was closed, Rohan logged in, went to Services > Refund Reissue > Create Refund Reissue Request, selected the failed Rs 18,100 record, nominated his newly pre-validated account, clicked Proceed to Verification, e-Verified by Aadhaar OTP, and received a Transaction ID along with an email and SMS confirmation - exactly the sequence the user manual describes. The Rs 18,100 then credited to the new account on the next refund cycle.

Two practical prerequisites decide whether the reissue goes through. First, the replacement account must be pre-validated (Profile > My Bank Account > Add Bank Account, then validate against the bank's records). Second, the account holder name must match PAN records exactly, because a mismatch is itself a top-five failure reason. If you also received a Section 143(1)(a) adjustment that changed your refund, resolve that first - our walkthrough on responding to a 143(1)(a) prima facie adjustment explains the e-Proceedings response, since an unresolved adjustment can suppress the refund a reissue would otherwise restore.

FAQ

Do I need to file a revised return to get a failed refund reissued?

No. As the Income Tax Department's Refund Reissue user manual makes clear, a failed credit is corrected through Services > Refund Reissue > Create Refund Reissue Request, not by filing a fresh or revised ITR. Filing a revised return only restarts processing and can delay the Rs 18,100-type refund further. Reissue keeps the original Section 237 entitlement intact.

My bank account is not validated - can the refund still credit?

No. The user manual is explicit that the refund can only be credited to a pre-validated bank account. Go to Profile > My Bank Account, add and validate the account against the bank's records, and only then nominate it inside the Refund Reissue Request. An unvalidated account is the single most common reason a 2025-26 reissue fails a second time.

Will I receive interest on a refund that was delayed because the credit failed?

Section 244A of the Income-tax Act, 1961 provides for interest on a delayed refund at the statutory rate of one-half per cent for every month or part of a month, subject to the conditions and exclusions the section sets out. Interest is not paid for any period of delay attributable to the taxpayer, so if the failure arose from your own stale account details, the interest position for that period may be limited. The bare section is available at indiacode.nic.in.

How do I e-Verify the Refund Reissue Request?

After clicking Proceed to Verification you e-Verify using your preferred method - Aadhaar OTP, net banking, or a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) - per the user manual. On success the portal displays a confirmation message with a Transaction ID, and a confirmation is sent to your registered email and mobile number. Keep that Transaction ID; it is your proof of a valid reissue request.

How long does the reissue take to credit after I submit?

The user manual does not fix a guaranteed timeline, and credit happens on the Department's next refund cycle once the request is verified and the bank account is validated. In practice taxpayers should track the status under Services > Refund Reissue or the refund status view, and re-check that the nominated account shows as validated. If the account remained unvalidated, the Rs 18,100-type credit can fail again on the next cycle.

Which bank account should I nominate for the refund?

Nominate an active savings or current account held in your own name, pre-validated on the portal, with an IFSC that is current after any bank merger. Several public-sector bank mergers since 2020 changed IFSC codes, so an account opened before the merger may carry a stale IFSC. Confirm the live IFSC with your branch, update and re-validate it, then select that account in the Refund Reissue Request.

Can someone else's account receive my income tax refund?

No. The refund must credit to a bank account linked to your own PAN and pre-validated under your login. A name mismatch with PAN records is a recognised failure reason in the Refund Banker's list, and nominating a third party's account will simply bounce. Always choose a validated account in your own name before clicking Proceed to Verification.