If you’re wondering when you’ll receive your $600 stimulus payment, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requests that you don’t call the tax agency to ask. Instead, it has set up an online portal where citizens can track their payment, much like they do their tax refund.
The portal, part of IRS.gov, is called Get My Payment. At the site, you click on the Get My Payment link that will take you to a page where you enter identifying information.
Only go to the site by typing in the URL “IRS.gov” and do not click on links from email or other sources to reach it. Since you’ll be entering sensitive information, you can be sure that scammers will quickly try to lead people to fake web portals.
Once on the IRS’ main page, click on the link that says “Get My Economic Impact Payment” and follow the directions. The portal will provide useful information, such as:
That the IRS sent your second Economic Impact payment, also known as a stimulus payment, or when it is scheduled to be sent.
That it also sent your first payment. Some people received their first Economic Impact Payment in partial payments. If you received partial payments, the application will show only the most recent.
Your payment type: whether you’ll be paid by direct deposit or mail.
No need to call
Data is updated once per day overnight, so there's no need to check more than once per day, the agency said.
“Please do not call the IRS about the second stimulus payment; our phone assistors do not have additional information beyond what’s available here on IRS.gov and in the Get My Payment application,” the IRS said in a statement.
The federal government began issuing the second round of Economic Impact Payments last week after President Trump signed a $900 billion aid package. The IRS said the direct deposit payments may take several days to post to individual accounts. Some payments may have already shown up as “pending.” The funds became available Monday.
Taxpayers without a direct deposit history with the IRS will receive paper checks. They will continue to be sent during the month of January.
As with the first stimulus payment, sent out in the spring, some people will be mailed debit cards in January, and the IRS urges people to carefully check their mail. Mailed payments will require more processing and mailing time.
Those who live outside the U.S. will have longer wait times for checks as disruptions to air travel and mail delivery in some countries will slow delivery.