How to Pre-Validate Bank Account to receive Income Tax Refund?

From March 2019 onwards, income tax refunds will only be credited to bank accounts that are pre-validated in the e-filing portal. Only pre-validated accounts can be used in the income-tax return while e-filing.

Effective from 1st March 2019, the income tax refunds will be credited only to bank accounts (savings/current/cash/OD) which are linked to PAN. If your PAN is not yet linked with your bank account, you must provide the details of the same to your bank branch to get an Income Tax refund.

If your bank is integrated with the e-filing portal, pre-validation can be done directly through EVC (Electronic Verification Code) and net-banking route.

On the other hand, if your bank account is not integrated with the e-filing portal, then the income tax department will validate the bank account itself from the details filled up by you.

How to Pre-Validate Bank Account to receive Income Tax Refund?

Now you understood the importance of Pre-Validate Bank Account to receive Income Tax Refund.

What are the conditions to Pre-Validate Bank Account to receive Income Tax Refund?

1. PAN shall be linked to Bank account.
2. The mobile number shall be linked to Bank account.
3. Name in bank account shall match the name in income-tax records.

There are two ways through which you can Pre-Validate Bank Account to receive Income Tax Refund. They are as below.

# Using the e-Filing Website

Pre-Validate Bank Account to receive Income Tax Refund

  1.  Login to income-tax e-filing portal.
  2. Under Profile Settings, you have to select the option “Prevalidate your bank account”.
  3. Enter PAN number, name as in PAN Card, bank account, IFSC, Mobile number
  4. Click on “Prevalidate” tab.
  5. The details will be cross-validated with the bank and if confirmed with the bank and if confirmed by bank then your bank account will be treated as validated and ready for ECS credit of any refund due.

# Using Internet Banking facility of your Bank

  1. Login to internet banking of your account.
  2. Select the income-tax e-filing option.
  3. When asked whether to pre-validate this account, select Yes.
  4. There you check the details like your name, Bank Account details, and PAN number.
  5. If everything is fine, then click on the tab “Confirm”.
  6. The Account No. selected by you will be forwarded as a part of the message to the Department of Income Tax for refund usage.

However, if your account is already validated, then if you login to e-filing portal and click on Profile>Prevalidate your Bank Account then you will find the status as it is “Validated”. Hence, I suggest you to first check whether it is validated or not.

Hope this will be helpful for all taxpayers.
Refer our other posts related to PAN and IT Returns.

99 Responses

  1. My ITR has been processed on feb 5th 2021 but refund not sent to the refund banker even a month later. I found out about the requirement to pre-validate and I pre-validated my account successfully today. Do I have to communicate in some way to IT that I have done pre-validation now? Could lack of pre-validation be the reason for not sending the refund to the refund banker?

    1. I have filed the ITR for 20-21. Status is showing Return is in progress and I have also prevalidate my account number and now Its showing my account is validated. But Still I am not able to Enable EVC. If the status is in Validated means will I get the refund?

  2. Dear sir

    my refund could not be deposited saying that PAN details not matching however which is not the case so they have asked copy of pan,bank pass book through mail which i have forwarded .I have been told to prevalidate the account which i have tried no of times but it is showing that due to technical erros pre-validation failed,Please suggest me what to do.

  3. Dear Sir,

    My name is M.D.CHANDRA MOHAN. Got an email from cpc for refund failure either due to

    1) PAN not linked to bank account
    2) Name in bank account not as per PAN

    My PAN is already linked. As for my name as per PAN is *Madiraju Doraswamy Raju Chandra Mohan*, but in bank account it is *M.D.Chandra Mohan*.

    So is it mandatory for me to change my bank account name as per PAN, as previous years of filing my refund has been on this name itself as per bank name. First time facing this issue.

    Also my SBI bank account is already prevalidated. Kindly advise.

  4. Hi, my axis bank account prevalidation is taking long time. Showing request submitted. There is no option to remove the same.

    So parallel can I add my SBI Account instead.

    1. axis bank is not integrated with income tax department so it takes long time…. you can add sbi which will be validated within minutes

  5. Is it necessary for just the PAN to be registered with the Banker or the Aadhar card also needs to be registered on the bank account?? I have ICICI account linked with PAN already and activated too but refund failed. It is not linked with Aadhar card.

  6. Sir, I have filed my return with Axis Bank Account in my ITR for refund credit, but the account is not getting validated and still showing the request submitted. then I have pre-validated my Indian Overseas Bank account, and it is accepted. But I didn’t receive a refund. what should I do?

  7. I have filed the ITR for 20-21. Status is showing Return is in progress. When I tried to prevalidate my account from IT site its failed because pan and accound name mismatch. So I did that from net banking. Now Its showing my account is validated. But Still I am not able to Enable EVC. If the status is in Validated means will I get the refund?

  8. I have prevalidated my bank account(02/06/2020) after IT return filing (revised-17/04/2020)for the year 2019- 20 and it is showing Validated and EVC enabled.This activity is sufficient to get my refund or anything i have to do further.

        1. My bank account says” Validated “on the IT site, is that enough to get the refund? Or should it also say “Validated and EVC enabledd” ?

          Is just VALIDATED enough for the refund?

  9. Hi Sir,

    I submitted to pre-validate my bank account twice through the e-filing approach. But whenever I login to see the status, the page takes me to log a new request everytime and I can’t even see the status for my previous requests. I don’t even know whether the request is failed, if yes then for what reason. It also do not show up in the failed bank list. What should I do?

  10. Sir I have filed my ITR first with my SBI account but I remove my sbi pre validated account and I put my ICICI account for refund and it’s showing validated. So will my refund will be be credited in icici account . I want my refund to credited in my icici account

  11. Dear Sir,

    Good morning.

    Still I have not received my refund amount of 2018-19 returns. When I checked my profile settings it was showing only validated and yesterday I prevalidated and it is showing now Validated and EVC enabled. Please let me know after how many days amount will be credited and Do I need to follow up anyone(Bank or ITR team) kindly help and share the details please, I am in a bad situation now need this money urgently it is around 60K. I have no job now :(. I was in notice period when this COVID issue starts and had an offer in one of the company but they are holding my joining and it is very difficult to manage now. kindly help

      1. Hi Sir,

        Thanks a lot for your reply.

        AO means Incometax assessing Officer ?

        Kindly let me know how I can get this details to contact please,

        Thanks
        Santhosh

  12. I could not pre-validate my bank account on IT portal. Can I request for a refund through cheque? If the answer is yes, please let me know the procedure.

      1. Hello sir

        I am trying to prevalidate my SBI account, it is showing there is a technical issue please contact bank but the bank is not helping in the same. They didn’t even know the issue.
        I have another account in Axis Bank. I tried to prevalidate the account but the request for prevalidatetion has been submitted since 2 months and still showing same.
        What to do now?

        1. Kindly try to Pre-Validate your SBI account via Internet Banking. It will accept the request without any notice. I was facing same problem and tried this way. It worked.

  13. Hi,
    What happens when one has multiple pre-validated Accounts ? In which account will the amount be refunded ? Where do we specify this ?

  14. Sir i have given my axis bank account and my pan is linked with my bank account . The status is still showing request submitted from last one month. Please suggest what should i do from my end.

      1. Sir bank manager says . It has nothing to do with us. E filling cust care says they are wonking on integration of axis bank but it will take time. ( no specific time)

  15. Hello, my ITR status says processed and the neel site shows as refund has been credited but my refund has not been credited to my account yet. I have an account in ICICI bank and it’s already prevalidated as well.
    I did drop a mail to [email protected] too but in vain. Kindly suggest what can be done now.

  16. My bank account shows “validated” but not “validated and evc enabled” due to which i am unable to place a request on IT website for my refund reissue. I have open grievance ids with them but none has been answered even after months. Do you have any idea?

  17. Dear Basavraj ji,
    My itr was processed on 15 th of Aug and til 13th i wasn’t aware of prevalidation. Issue is, that like previous years i had given my axis bank account as my refund bank during itr filing, and upon prevalidation its shows request submitted since last two days, while my other account (sbi) gets prevadalidated instantly. Is it posible to get refund in my sbi account despite the refund account is in axis bank.
    One more thing is that i have done this prevalidation after the itr was processed succesfully, so will the refund process be failed or they will wait till my account gets prevalidated.
    Thanks in advance

      1. Sir during the itr filing my axis bank account was prefilled there for refund related issues. So i choose axis there for refund. But since its prevalidation is in pending stage so i tried to prevalidate my sbi account which gets done in no time. So now, can they refund it to my sbi account if axis does not get validated in time?

      2. Sir,
        one account of my account is already pre validated. Since now I am a pensioner I thought of pre validating my pension account without deleting the old account status.
        Immediately thereafter I filed my tax giving the pension account no. for receiving the refund. Unfortunately I came to know later that the pre validation of this account failed.
        As already one prevalidated account exists , will the IT authorities credit the refund to this old account even though I have mentioned a different account for receiving the refund and the pre validation of which has failed. Please clarify on this point.

  18. Hi Basavaraj,
    Pre-Validation of my bank account (Bank of India) status has not upgraded from ”Request Submitted”.
    Any idea how long it takes for failure or successful validation ?
    Thank you in advance.

      1. I think all accounts of bank of India is not updating its status from “Request Submitted”.
        Many times informed bank branch that request is sent from IT portal to your bank and asked them to communicate their HO but still no account of bank of India is pre-validating.

    1. Hi Raghavendra, I have got the same issue. Is your bank able to answer your query? Because my bank said they are unable to track it.

  19. Dear Basavaraj,

    Pre-validating of my SBI Bank Account failed with the following message mailed to me:

    “Your pre validating bank account request for the PAN ??XXXXXX?? has failed due to any one of the below reason.
    PAN Name and Account Number Name mismatch
    PAN not linked with the Account Number
    Please try with other bank account number or Contact Bank for the necessary changes.”

    But I had successfully e-Verified my ITR filling with the EVC generated from the same bank account (ITR filling & e-Verification had been done 5 days before this effort for pre-validating the account). Moreover, I have checked and found the my PAN is successfully registered with this account. What might be the issue here and how to get around it? Will my refund be credited (I have the details of this account only in the ITR filling)?

  20. SIR
    MY PAN NAME AND BANK ACCOUNT NAME IS SAME AND MY PAN IS LINKED WITH BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER BUT WHEN I TRY TO PREVALIDATE MY ACCOUNT NUMBER THEN IT SHOW FAILURE. WHAT TO DO.

  21. Both in my PAN and bank account there is only intials. But in my IT records my surname is expanded. But when I tries to pre validate my bank account through e filing portal it shows failure. The bank refuses to change my name with surname expanded in the absence of suitable address proof.What shall I do?

  22. Sir,

    I have entered all the details required for the Pre-Validation of my bank account (Bank of India). It’s been 28 days and the status has not upgraded from ”Request Submitted”.

    Is it Normal ? How many days does it take to get my bank account validated ? Should I contact my home branch ?

      1. Sorry but this information is incorrect. Some banks are not on the e-filing list and hence pre-validation of the account in banks like Axis, ICICI, will fail. Advisable to choose an Indian Bank account like SBI or syndicate. Validation is immediate if your PAN number is linked to the bank. Hope this helps.

  23. Hi Basavaraj,
    I entered my request for prevalidate bank account on 10th july after I everified on 2nd july. But status still updates as request submitted. By when can I expect a TDS refund or by when can I accept my account to be validated?

  24. Sir my PNB account is updated with all kyc norms with no discrepancies within but when i try to prevalidate it, once i submit the request and again open to see the status it again pops up the same screen requiring details to be filled in for pre validation. what to do sir? kindly suggest

  25. While Applying for Pre-validation Status its showing Validated but unable to generate Enable EVC?Can i get refund after only Validation?

  26. For pre-validation of bank account how many days it will takes after linking account in e-filing site ? and can’t we go for further steps untill it’s validated ? because we have around 12 days more.

  27. How to change the PAN no in my account if the same was wrongly updated by my bank? I have a partnership firm but due to some technical error my individual PAN no. Was captured instead of the firms. Kindly guide please as I am unable to receive my refund

  28. Hlo sir,I have done prevalidation through e-filling portal,but it’s still not get validated since 15days

  29. Sir,how many days does bank will take to prevalidate bank account? when status shown as “request submitted”..

  30. Hello, my SBI account was already showing pre-validated and I have successfully received refunds in the same over the last couple of years. However, this year, refund issued failed as “PAN name was not matching account name”. Because my PAN has my surname expanded and bank account name has just initials. After checking with customer care of the IT department, I changed bank account name so it matches exactly the PAN card. I again applied for refund. But it still failed giving same reason. Any advice what I should do?
    I deleted my pre validated account and tried entering the same again now. Waiting to see what happens

  31. I have been told that you require an Indian mobile number to prevalidate an NRO account. As an NRI domiciled in the UK my number is a UK number that is registered at the bank. Is the need to have an Indian number correct?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


For Unbiased Advice Subscribe to our Fixed Fee Only Financial Planning Service

Recent Posts

Categories

Categories

Archives

Archives

Newsletter