September Advance Child Tax Credit Payments

The IRS issued a formal statement on September 24, which anyone missing their September payment should read.

The IRS’s statement reads:

During the week of September 13-17, the IRS successfully delivered a third monthly round of approximately 35 million advance Child Tax Credits (CTC), totaling $15 billion. We have resolved a technical issue, which we estimate caused fewer than 2% of CTC recipients not to receive their September payment. These individuals will receive their payments as early as today [September 24] by direct deposit or in the coming days for those receiving checks by mail.

The impacted group primarily included taxpayers who recently made an update on their bank account or address on the IRS Child Tax Credit Update Portal and affected payments to married filing jointly taxpayers where only one spouse made a bank or address change. We know people depend on receiving these payments on time and we apologize for the delay.

There are multiple reasons why people may be seeing a different amount than they expected. If only one spouse changed an address or bank account, the other spouse’s half could be going to the old address or bank account. In these instances, the full payment will still be distributed. Monthly payment amounts can also change depending on recently processed tax returns. We encourage people to check the IRS CTC Update Portal for the latest payment information.

Additional Tax Resources:

TAS

• 2021 Child Tax Credit & Advance Payment Option
• Tax News and Information page

IRS

• Advance Child Tax Credit Payments in 2021 (Español, 中文 (简体), 中文 (繁體), 한국어, Русский, Tiếng Việt, Kreyòl ayisyen)
• 2021 Child Tax Credit and Advance Child Tax Credit Payments: Resources and Guidance
• Publication 5549, IRS User Guide: Child Tax Credit Update Portal
• Publication 5534-E, Advance Payments of the Child Tax Credit: Which Online Tool Should I Use
• Questions and Answers About the Advance Child Tax Credit Payments