Still waiting for a paper stimulus check from the IRS? It could be on the way in this new batch

By Michael Grothaus

April 23, 2021

It’s been six weeks since the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began sending out the third round of Economic Impact Payments to Americans trying to navigate the financial implications of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Better known as stimulus checks, this third round of payments saw individuals getting up to $1,400 if they have no dependents, with maximum payments increasing the more dependents a person has.

However, though third stimulus check payments have been going out for six weeks now, millions of Americans have yet to get theirs. The delay for some people is just a logistical side effect of a financial distribution operation of this size. The good news is the IRS has been very good about updating Americans on the progress of the third stimulus check rollout. And its most recent update is good news for millions of Americans who are still waiting for their third payment—especially if it’s being delivered via paper check in the mail. Here’s the latest from the IRS:

    The sixth round of payments includes nearly 2 million people.

    Of those, about 900,000 of the payments are via direct deposit, and about 1.1 million are being delivered by paper check.

    The sixth batch of payments began processing on Friday, April 16.

    Those getting direct deposit payments will have had notification of these deposits into their bank around Wednesday, April 21. Paper check payments could still be en route due to the slower nature of snail mail.

    Included in this batch of payments is 700,000 “plus-up” payments. These are payments to people who already received their third stimulus check, but are due more money because of changes on their recently filed 2020 tax return.

If you still haven’t received your third stimulus check—don’t worry. It’s coming. The IRS again stresses that it is continuing to send Economic Impact Payments out on a weekly basis. To date, the IRS has sent out 161 million payments with a total value of $379 billion for the third stimulus payment. Those numbers will rise each week as the checks continue to roll.

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