ITR Filing AY 2025-26: Don't Forget to Pre-Validate Your Bank Account After Filing ITR – Here's How

Filing your Income Tax Return (ITR) is only the first step in the process of claiming a refund. The most crucial action after filing is pre-validating your bank account on the income tax e-filing portal. Unless your bank account is pre-validated, the Income Tax Department will not be able to credit your tax refund.

For Assessment Year (AY) 2025-26, taxpayers must ensure that the bank details provided are accurate, valid, and linked with their Permanent Account Number (PAN). The portal also offers facilities to add new accounts, remove old or deactivated ones, and re-validate existing accounts. Let’s understand why this step is important and how to complete it.

Why Pre-Validation of Bank Account is Necessary

• Mandatory for refunds: Tax refunds are credited only to pre-validated bank accounts.

• EVC generation: A pre-validated account allows you to generate an Electronic Verification Code (EVC), which is useful for e-verification of ITR, refund reissue requests, secure login, and e-proceedings.

• Enhanced security: Pre-validation ensures that only your verified accounts are linked to your tax profile, reducing the risk of errors or fraud.

Services Available on the Income Tax Portal

With a valid PAN and bank account, taxpayers can access multiple features on the income tax portal, such as:

• Adding a new bank account and pre-validating it.

• Deleting or removing inactive or closed bank accounts.

• Nominating a specific account for tax refunds.

• Enabling or disabling EVC services as required.

Steps to Add and Pre-Validate Your Bank Account

Login to the Income Tax e-filing portal.

Go to the Dashboard and open the My Profile section.

Click on My Bank Account.

Select Add Bank Account.

Enter details such as account number, account type, holder type, and IFSC code.

Click on Validate to complete the process.

What Happens After Successful Validation?

• A success message will appear on the screen.

• You will also receive a notification on your registered mobile number and email ID.

• If your bank is integrated with the portal, your registered mobile number and email will appear automatically and cannot be modified.

Multiple Bank Accounts – More Options for Refunds

Taxpayers are allowed to pre-validate more than one bank account. Additionally, you can nominate multiple accounts to receive refunds, giving you flexibility in case one account is unavailable or inactive.

What if Mobile Number or Email Doesn’t Match?

If the mobile number or email ID registered with your bank does not match the details available on the income tax portal, a warning message will appear under the Added Bank Accounts section. In such cases, you need to:

• Update your details with the bank, or

• Correct the details on the income tax portal.
  Once updated, you must re-validate the account.

Key Takeaway

For AY 2025-26, simply filing your ITR is not enough. To ensure a smooth refund process, pre-validation of your bank account is essential. Without this step, your refund will remain on hold, even if you are eligible. Make sure to check and update your details at the earliest to avoid delays.