Unexpected Tax Refund? How to Tell If It's Legit

May 25, 2026 by Carolyn Richardson, EA, MBA

We received a tax refund for $213.18. Can you verify if this is real (i.e., not a scam)?  

-Manuel & Jane


 
Greetings Manuel & Jane,

Thank you for submitting your question to our blog regarding the refund you received. You indicated that you were apparently not expecting a refund, and that you live outside of the United States. While we cannot verify whether the refund you received is legitimate, we hope this answer provides guidance on how to determine it on your own.
 

How Did You Receive the Refund?

One question to ask yourself is whether the check you received looks “legit.” Is it from the United States Treasury? Normally, tax refund checks indicate the tax year for which the check is issued and the form associated with it. This information is located in the lower left section of the check, where there is normally a memo entry. If you filed a joint return, it should be made out to both yourself and your spouse. It’s possible that the refund was issued by another government agency other than the IRS, and if so, that should also be indicated on the check. For example, if you overpaid on a passport application, the agency issuing the refund might be the State Department, although all checks issued by the U.S. Government come from the Treasury Department.

The IRS has stopped issuing physical checks for refunds as of the end of 2025, under an Executive Order. However, if you included bank information on your return – either for a payment due or a refund – the IRS will normally issue a refund directly to your bank account, rather than issuing a check. So, this might be one indication that the refund you received isn’t what it appears to be. If the IRS wasn’t able to issue a direct credit to your account, however, they will issue a physical check. Generally, they will send you a letter beforehand, asking you to provide bank information so they can issue the payment electronically instead. Since this process is still somewhat in transition, it’s possible they may issue a refund for a prior tax year rather than the current year (2025 tax returns). 
 

Did You File a Tax Return?

U.S. citizens continue to have a filing requirement even if they live outside of the United States and earn no money from the United States, as the U.S. taxes worldwide income. U.S. citizens who are married to foreign nationals generally file as married filing separately, although they can elect to treat their non-US spouse as a resident and file a joint return, which also means reporting their spouse’s foreign income in addition to their own.
Since you live outside of the United States, we’re going to assume that one or both of you is a U.S. citizen or otherwise has a filing requirement for the U.S., such as having U.S.-sourced income, as it seems unlikely that the IRS would have contact information for you that would allow them to send you a refund at all. Of course, if you haven’t filed a U.S. tax return or otherwise had any contact with the IRS, it seems unlikely that they would have issued you a refund check and that the check you received is a scam.

If you filed a return but were not expecting a refund, it may be that the IRS corrected or changed something on your return, resulting in this small amount being refunded. Another possible source of the refund, if you filed, was that you had some income withheld that was omitted from the return you filed. Depending on your income sources, one of your payors may have submitted “backup withholding” on income you earned from them. Backup withholding generally occurs when someone owes you money, such as for services or investment income, but you do not provide them with a taxpayer identification number, such as a Social Security number or ITIN, or that number is incorrect. Backup withholding can be done at a rate as high as 30% of the income, so if your tax rate is lower than that, the difference will generate an overpayment, which is refunded to you.
 

Check Your Account at IRS.gov

Another way you can verify if the refund payment is legitimate – and also maybe determine what caused it – is to check your taxpayer account at the IRS website at irs.gov. If you don’t already have an account set up, you will need to create one, but you can do so directly from the IRS’s main website page, where it says, “Create account,” and navigate through the steps to create an account. This feature is available even to taxpayers who have international addresses, but you will need a cell phone to create it. You will also need a copy of your previous year(s) return(s) available, as the creation process will ask for some information from a recently filed return to verify your identity.

Once you have access to your IRS account, you can request a Record of Account transcript, which will show you both what was on your return as filed versus what the IRS calculated, and any procedural actions the IRS has taken on your account for that tax year. You might also want to check your Wage and Income transcript to see if any withholding was paid to the IRS that you did not include on your return, which might have resulted in a refund.
 

Call the IRS

If none of these options works for you or you are otherwise unable to navigate through them, you can always call the IRS for assistance. Since you are out of the country, you would want to call the International Taxpayer Service Call Center at 267-941-1000 (please note this is not a toll-free number). Their operating hours are Monday through Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., Eastern time. The international taxpayer assistance office also has a live chat feature you can access here: https://www.irs.gov/help/contact-my-local-office-internationally 

While the IRS used to have taxpayer service personnel at some foreign consulates and embassies, they no longer offer those services.

If you call the IRS, please make sure you have a copy of your return for the tax period the refund was issued for, as they may ask for information from that return to verify your identity before they can assist you.

We hope this reply provides enough guidance to determine whether your refund is legitimate, and we hope it is! After all, who doesn’t want more money?

Best Wishes,
Carolyn Richardson, EA, MBA