IRS Holding My Refund for Review: Nothing to Do for 60 Days.

A hospital tech e-files a 2025 return on March 2, sees a $7,400 refund at the bottom of it, and spends it on paper. Five weeks in, Where's My Refund stops saying anything useful. In early April an envelope shows up: the IRS is holding the refund while it verifies the return, it needs 60 days, and it asks for nothing. That is a CP05. It is now October and the money still has not moved.

The notice comes out of Return Integrity Verification Operations, the unit that matches returns against third-party records before refunds go out. It checks whether the wages you reported match what your employer reported, whether the withholding you claimed was actually withheld, and whether the credits hold up. Letter 4464C and Letter 2645C are the same review wearing different numbers, and all three ask for the same 60 days.

It happens more than people assume. The National Taxpayer Advocate's 2025 report to Congress counted more than 30 million individual returns suspended somewhere in processing in fiscal 2025, and about 3.6 million taxpayers paid late, waiting an average of 7 weeks past normal processing after e-filing and 14 weeks on paper. Being flagged is a filter result, not an accusation: in the data the Advocate studied for 2018, the identity theft filters picked legitimate returns 63% of the time.

That makes it a different animal from the two notices people confuse it with. A CP2000 proposes a change to your return and invites you to argue with it. A CP14 bills you for tax you already reported and did not pay. A CP05 does neither: no balance due, no deadline on your side, nothing to sign.

The 60 days run from the notice date, not from the day you filed. The notice tells you not to call before they are up, and that is not a brush-off: the assistor who answers can see the hold and cannot release it, so a call on day 20 buys you a sentence you already have in writing.

Two things are worth doing while you wait. Pull your wage and income transcript in your IRS Online Account and compare it to your return, because the most common honest cause of a verification hold is a W-2 the employer filed late, filed wrong, or never filed. Then confirm your withholding matches box 2 of every W-2 and the withholding box on every 1099, since a transposed figure there is what the filter is built to catch.

Two things are worth not doing. Do not file the return a second time, which creates a duplicate and buries the original in a slower queue. And do not amend while the hold is open, because an amended return starts a separate, slower process that was still backed up above normal at the end of 2025.

This is the part nobody mentions. §6611(a) allows interest on an overpayment, and §6611(e)(1) carves out a processing window: no interest at all if the refund is paid within 45 days after the later of the unextended due date or the date you filed. For a 2025 return filed by April 15, 2026, that window closed May 30, 2026. Past it, interest runs, and it runs from April 15 rather than from day 46, because §6513(b)(1) deems tax withheld from wages to have been paid on the due date.

The rate is the federal short-term rate plus 3 points for individuals, which the IRS held at 7% for the quarter beginning October 1, 2026 in Rev. Rul. 2026-15. Two caveats. §6611(b)(2) lets the IRS run the clock only to a date up to 30 days before it cuts the refund, so the figure lands short of a straight day count. And the interest is taxable in the year you receive it, reported on a Form 1099-INT if it comes to $10 or more.

Inside the 60 days the IRS does one of three things: releases the refund, sends another interim letter, or sends a CP05A. The CP05A moves the work to you. It lists the items it could not verify and gives 30 days to send documents: pay stubs, a letter from the employer on company letterhead showing dates of employment and withholding, or copies of the checks.

Miss that deadline and the IRS resolves the question against you. Withholding it cannot verify comes off, credits it cannot verify get disallowed, and the refund shrinks by an adjustment notice. That is recoverable, but through the deficiency and claim procedures rather than a 30-day document upload, which costs months. Answer it, send it to the address or fax printed on the notice, and keep proof of what went out and when.

Start with the number on the notice, with a copy of the return in front of you. If the 60 days have passed and nothing has happened, you also have standing with the Taxpayer Advocate Service. §7811(a)(2) defines significant hardship to include a delay of more than 30 days in resolving a taxpayer account problem, which a blown 60-day review is. The request is Form 911.

Be realistic about what that buys. TAS cannot override a mandatory review or hand you the refund early. What it can do is make sure the case is being worked instead of sitting, which on a file that has gone quiet is most of the problem. The hard ceiling is the PATH Act: §6402(m) bars any refund on a return claiming the earned income credit or the additional child tax credit before February 15, and nobody lifts that one, hardship or not.

One version of this is not a waiting problem. If the CP05 is for a return you did not file, it is identity theft, and the move is Form 14039 plus a call to the number on the notice. The Advocate reported identity theft victims waiting an average of more than 21 months for the IRS to resolve their cases, and that clock starts when you report it.