730 refund 2026: when it arrives and how to check the payment

What the 730 refund is and where that money comes from

Emily works in a pharmacy on Via Italia and every year, opening her July payslip, she asks herself the same question: «is this money really mine?». The answer is yes, and understanding why makes everything else much simpler. The refund is not a gift from the State and it is not a bonus: it is your own money coming back.

During the year you pay taxes in advance, month by month: every payslip or pension instalment contains the withholding that your employer or INPS pays on your behalf. When you file your 730, the account is worked out in full and precisely. If the tax withheld during the year is higher than the tax actually due, the difference is your credit, and the credit is refunded. If the opposite happens, the 730 closes with an amount to pay.

What almost always creates the credit are the deductions and expenses you include in your return: medical visits and medicines, mortgage interest on your main home, dependent children, veterinary expenses, insurance, and local surcharges already paid in excess. Even a year with two jobs can generate a small credit, as can changing employer mid-year.

730 refund in your payslip: how the adjustment works

The mechanism is simpler than it looks: the credit is not paid to you by the CAF, but by your employer or the body that pays your pension. We transmit the return, the Agenzia delle Entrate makes the result available to your withholding agent through form 730-4, and from that moment the adjustment is calculated and attached to your payslip. There is no separate bank transfer: the money appears as a specific line in your payslip.

Payment starts from the first useful pay after the withholding agent has received the 730-4. These are the timings we see every year at our desk:

• employees: the refund goes into the July payslip, which many private companies pay in the first days of August
• pensioners: the credit is recognised from the second following month, so normally with the August instalment or, more often, September
• those who bring their documents only in September, close to the 30 September 2026 deadline: the adjustment goes into the October or November payslip, and for pensioners into November or December
• if the credit is higher than the withholding built up in a single month, the excess is refunded in the payslips of the following months, as the withholdings accumulate

Watch out for a small but useful detail: if for each individual tax the result is 12 euro or less, the withholding agent makes neither a refund nor a deduction. And the refund is always within the limits of what is available, that is, of how much the payslip can give back month by month.

Why there is no «refund day»

At the office we often hear the question «does the 730 refund on 1 July?». It is not like that: nobody waits for anybody and there is no single date written anywhere. When the money is credited depends above all on when you submitted the return, because that is where the chain starts.

• return filed between May and June: refund with the July payslip
• filed by the third week of June: refund between August and September
• filed between July and the end of August: refund between September and October
• filed in September, close to the 30 September 2026 deadline: the adjustment arrives between October and November, and for pensioners also in December

Then there are the checks. The Agenzia delle Entrate may carry out preventive verifications when the refund is high — in practice over 4,000 euro — or when the return contains data that is inconsistent with the single certifications or the payments on record. In these cases the payment is delayed, but the suspension cannot exceed four months: beyond that, the refund must be paid out.

730 with no withholding agent: how long the Agenzia takes to refund you directly

If when you file the return you have no employer and no body acting as withholding agent — because you are unemployed, because you receive NASpI, or because your employment ended before you filed — you can still use the 730. Only who pays changes: the credit is paid directly by the Agenzia delle Entrate.

• if you have provided your IBAN, the refund arrives by bank transfer to the current or postal account you indicated
• without an IBAN, the Agenzia issues credit instruments to be collected at the Post Office: they work, but the times stretch a lot
• the times are longer than the adjustment in your payslip: the refund normally starts in December 2026 and may continue into the early months of 2027, in any case within the sixth month after the deadline for transmitting the return
• in the case of a preventive check, payment arrives within four months of the deadline for transmitting the 730, or from the date of filing if that is later
• when instead the result is an amount to pay, the payment is made with form F24 filled in in full

730 where to see the refund: the three places to look

Before asking when it arrives, it is worth knowing how much should arrive: it is the amount that decides everything that follows. The answer is written on a single sheet that we give you at the end of the appointment, together with a copy of the return.

• form 730-3, the settlement statement: there you find the credit you are due, with taxes, deductions and instalments already calculated. If an expense you expected does not appear, that is the moment to say so, not later
• the payslip or pension statement: the refund appears as a line linked to the adjustment, with the amount of credit recognised that month
• for those with no withholding agent: the reserved area of the Agenzia delle Entrate, where you can check the status of the refund and the IBAN you provided

Our advice is always the same: compare the 730-3 with the first useful payslip and keep both documents for five years, together with the receipts for your expenses. Ten minutes of attention today are worth more than any phone call a year from now.

730 refund not received: where to start

If the expected month has passed and the refund line does not appear, it is almost never a problem with money: usually it is a step that needs aligning. Here is the sequence we follow at the desk, from the simplest check to the deepest.

The checklist

• re-read the 730-3: was the result really a credit, or did the return close with an amount to pay?
• check the payslip of the month after the expected one: sometimes the credit slips by one month
• ask the employer's payroll office or the body that pays your pension whether form 730-4 has arrived: until that document arrives, the refund cannot start
• check with the CAF that the return was transmitted correctly: if a figure is wrong we send a correction and the adjustment restarts
• with no withholding agent: log in to the Agenzia's reserved area, check the status of the refund and make sure the IBAN is the right one, because a wrong account stops everything
• if the error is in the return itself, it is corrected with an amended or supplementary 730, or with the Redditi form: these are different routes and the choice depends on the error

A separate chapter is the refunds of deceased people: the credit is not lost, but the Agenzia must identify the heirs and transfer the refund, and in these cases the times are longer than normal. These are situations we deal with calmly at the desk: bring us the 730-3, the payslip and the relevant documents.

The five most common questions at the counter

These are the five questions about the 730 refund that come up most often at our desks. If your situation does not fit any of the answers — two jobs in the same year, NASpI, an inheritance — the first consultation at our CAF is free: all you need is an appointment, at Via Oreste Terenghi 21/23 in Cinisello Balsamo, or on WhatsApp.