Mandatory Federal Electronic Payments by September 30, 2025

President Trump issued an Executive Order (“Order”) to mandate the “transition to electronic payments for all Federal disbursements and receipts by digitizing payments to the extent permissible under existing law…”. The cited reasons for this Order include preventing fraud, increasing efficiencies, and reducing costs.

Under this Order, the President directs the Treasury Department to cease issuing paper checks by September 30, 2025, including payments for “intragovernmental payments, benefits payments, vendor payments, and tax refunds.” Additionally, this Order mandates that “all payments made to the Federal Government shall be processed electronically”, except for certain situations, including if an individual does not have access to banking services or electronic payment systems.

Specific to tax administration, this Order affects both tax payments made to, as well as tax refund checks issued by, the Treasury Department.

Treasury Department Response

In response to this Order, the Treasury Department released a request for information, offering individuals and organizations an opportunity to provide “feedback on Treasury’s implementation of the Executive Order and make recommendations to increase public awareness to help consumers, including unbanked and underbanked populations, transition to digital payments.”

This request for information includes the following:

• Why individuals and organizations continue to use paper checks when receiving or making payments to the Federal government.
• What information should be included as part of a public awareness campaign to help individuals and organization transition from using paper checks.
• The preferred types of electronic funds transfer (EFT) systems.

What’s Next

The implementation of this Order will impact taxpayers in a variety of ways, including ultimately requiring taxpayers to use an EFT system when making payments to, and receiving payments from, the Federal government.

Eide Bailly will continue to monitor this Order and Treasury’s request for information and will provide further information as the process progresses. There is also a possibility this Order could be modified, including delaying its effective date past September 30, 2025.