For more than a decade, IRS2Go answered one question: where's my refund. Check a status, maybe find a free filing link, done.
As of September 25, 2026, that app is retired. The IRS has replaced it with a new IRS app that does something IRS2Go never did: let a taxpayer securely sign in and pull real account data, balances, notices, transcripts, an IP PIN, straight from their phone.
IRS2Go was a companion, not a portal. It could tell someone their refund shipped, but it couldn't show what the IRS actually had on file.
The new app closes that gap by connecting to IRS Individual Online Account, the same account system that has lived on IRS.gov for years. Sign in on the app, and according to the IRS's own FAQ on the transition, a taxpayer can:
Not everything requires signing in, though, and that split is worth knowing before telling a client to open the app.
That table is the whole app in one glance, and it's worth screenshotting for a client email: the free-standing features cover the questions clients ask every January, while the sign-in features cover the ones a firm usually has to pull for them.
This is the part most coverage of the launch skips, and it's the part clients (and firms handling client devices) will actually ask about.
Signing in doesn't happen inside the app's own interface. The app opens a secure browser window, runs the same authentication IRS.gov already uses for Individual Online Account, then hands control back to the app automatically. Credentials never pass through the app itself.
Once signed in, a session stays active for up to 60 minutes before requiring another sign-in. The IRS also confirms the app doesn't retain tax account data as permanent storage on the device: what persists locally is a temporary session credential, cleared the moment the user signs out.
For a firm fielding "is it safe to check my IRS balance on my phone" questions this season, that architecture, timed sessions plus no permanent local data, is the actual answer, not just "the IRS says it's secure."
The app needs iOS or iPadOS 15.1 or later, or Android 7.0 or later, and it's available in English and Spanish. Anyone on an older device will need to keep using IRS.gov directly until they update.
Two things are conspicuously absent, and both matter more to practitioners than to individual clients.
• Business Tax Account isn't in the app. Businesses still manage their IRS accounts through IRS.gov only.
• Tax Pro Account isn't in the app either. Practitioners still handle authorizations, CAF numbers, and client access exactly the way they did before launch. Bizora's breakdown of the Tax Pro Account expansion is still the current picture there, and nothing about the new app changes it.
The IRS says both are on the roadmap eventually, in the same release that says the app will keep expanding. For now, treat the app as an Individual Online Account companion and nothing more.
A refund-tracker app was easy to mention in passing. An app that surfaces real balances, notices, and an IP PIN is worth building into onboarding, because it changes what a client can self-serve versus what still needs a call to the firm.
A few things worth raising with clients directly this season:
• Notices may start arriving somewhere new. If a client opts into digital notices through the app, that's one more channel a firm needs to ask about when a client says "I got something from the IRS." Bizora's guide on IP PINs and multi-factor authentication for tax pros covers the identity side of that same shift.
• Scam traffic tends to spike right behind IRS news like this. The IRS is explicit: it will never ask for sensitive information through an unsolicited text, email, or pop-up, and taxpayers should only download the app through the official IRS app page or a verified Apple App Store or Google Play listing. Look-alike apps and ads claiming IRS account access are already a known risk, and that single line is worth putting at the top of any client-facing note about the launch.
• Getting clients onto Individual Online Account still pays off, mobile or not: it's the same account whether they open it in a browser or the app, so the sign-up effort isn't wasted if they end up using one over the other.
This app sits inside a longer IRS push toward digital-first service: Individual Online Account's expansion, Tax Pro Account's growth, and a steady move toward digital notice delivery all point the same direction. Putting account access inside an app taxpayers already have open just makes that shift harder to miss.
Bizora tracks releases like this as they land, so firms aren't finding out how an IRS tool changed from a client who read about it first.
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