Fourth Round of Stimulus Checks Going Out ($36 Billion) – Here is Who Gets Them and What to Look For

The IRS has said that the fourth round of stimulus checks are going out. This equals 25 million payments in this round, totaling $36 billion. Here is the breakdown of who will receive them and how to track your payment in this round.

Fourth Round of Stimulus Payments – What to Look For

This is the fourth round of the American Rescue Plan payments. The official payment date is April 7 so you may already have the payment. If not, check further down the page to see how you can track your payments.

Here is Who This Round of Stimulus Payments is Going To

This round is headed to the following people:

• In total, this batch includes more than 25 million payments, with a total value of more than $36 billion.
• The largest block of these payments went to Social Security beneficiaries who didn’t file a 2020 or 2019 tax return and didn’t use the Non-Filers tool last year. More than 19 million payments, with a total value of more than $26 billion, went to these beneficiaries, which include Social Security retirement, survivor or disability (SSDI) beneficiaries.
• More than 3 million payments, with a total value of nearly $5 billion, went to Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries.
• Nearly 85,000 payments, with a total value of more than $119 million, went to Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) beneficiaries.
• This batch includes additional ongoing supplemental payments for people who earlier in March received payments based on their 2019 tax returns but are eligible for a new or larger payment based on their recently processed 2020 tax returns. This batch included more than 1 million of these “plus-up” payments, with a total value of more than $2 billion.
• More than 1 million payments, with a total value of nearly $3 billion, went to people for whom the IRS previously did not have information to issue a payment but who recently filed a tax return and qualified for an Economic Impact Payment.  Payments to this group — and the “plus-up” payments noted above — will continue on a weekly basis going forward as the IRS continues processing tax returns from 2020 and 2019.
• Overall, this fourth batch of payments contains nearly 24 million direct deposit payments (with a total value of over $33 billion) and more than 1 million paper check payments (with a total value of nearly $3 billion).

The IRS is still saying that payments to VA beneficiaries who are not required to file April 14 so if you are in that group, you need to just wait another week.

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Tracking Your Stimulus Payment

What to Look for in the Mail

So, this is what you need to look for if you are getting a prepaid debit card. Note that the IRS specifically said that the payments going in this mail – 1 million of them – are paper checks. But keep your eyes open in case it comes in the form of the prepaid debit card below.

The Visa debit cards are issued by MetaBank.

The check will be a normal check from the IRS.

Track Your Payment

Now that you know how the money is going out, the next step is finding out how your payment is/did go out. The trick for that is going to the IRS Get My Payment website. This will give you all the information about how your payment was made and when it went out.

To find out for sure, click this link to go to the IRS status tool. What you will need is your social security number, your birthdate, your address, and zip code. Right after entering that, it will give you a status message about your money. Below is what I saw with my status.

Status Messages

If you do not see it saying that the money will be deposited, you can check back each day as this tool is updated once per day. It will tell you if the money has been scheduled for deposit, a check sent out, or a debit card sent. If you do not recognize the bank account number shown, you will have to wait a little longer. The money will bounce back and you will eventually be issued a check or prepaid debit card.

Remember that the tool above will not let you make any changes to how you receive your payment. So, what the IRS has on file will be what they attempt to send it to.

Payment Status:

• A payment has been processed, a payment date is available and payment is to be sent either by direct deposit or mail. Note: mail means you may be issued an EIP Card or a check.

or

• You’re eligible, but a payment has not been processed and a payment date is not yet available.

It will not show the amount of your 2021 Economic Impact Payment.

Payment Status Not Available: We haven’t yet processed your payment oryou’re not eligible for a payment.

Need More Information: Your payment was returned to the IRS because the Postal Service was unable to deliver it. Only people who get this message can use the tool to give us bank account information.

Get help with this tool in Get My Payment Frequently Asked Questions.

Track Your Payment in the Mail

If you see that your stimulus payment was sent out as a check or debit card, the next step is to set it up to track your money through the USPS. They have a handy tool that makes this easy.

Link: Sign-Up for the Free Informed Delivery by USPS

While the Get My Payment tool can tell you when a check was mailed, it does not give you a delivery date. Also, there are some people that have had their checks stolen out of their mailboxes.

This great USPS tool is called Informed Delivery by USPS. This is a free service that you can setup that will send you an e-mail each weekday morning with the mail that you will be receiving. It delivers electronically a greyscale image of the front of each envelope that is set to be delivered to you.

This is accomplished through the automated scanning equipment the USPS uses for mail processing. Any mail that would go through this automated process will be sent as an image to your e-mail.

You can sign-up easily enough and verify your identity. But, it will take 3 business days for this process to be complete so if you do it today, you likely won’t have any notifications delivered before Wednesday or Thursday.

Bottom Line

The IRS is going at a very fast pace at getting the different rounds out of the American Rescue Plan payments. While the first stimulus payments last year took months, it has been less than one month since the first payments went out from the ARP and already the IRS has issued 156 million payments, totaling over $372 billion.

If you are in the group above, you should be able to receive your payment this week.