If your phone has been lighting up with posts about new stimulus checks, surprise IRS deposits or a two thousand dollar tariff dividend, you are not alone. The rumors are loud. The actual money is quieter.
For most households, there is no new broad federal stimulus payment scheduled for February 2026. What people can count on right now is the regular tax refund that comes after filing a return and a few very specific payments that have already gone out to military and Coast Guard members.
No fresh federal stimulus checks this month
The last round of federal economic impact payments went out in 2021. Any new nationwide stimulus check would need fresh approval from Congress, and that has not happened.
In late 2024 and early 2025, the Internal Revenue Service sent automatic payments of up to $1,400 to people who had never claimed the Recovery Rebate Credit on their 2021 tax return.
Those catch up payments wrapped up by January 2025, and the final deadline to file a 2021 return and claim that money passed on April 15, 2025. There were no extensions.
Today, the IRS has not announced any new federal stimulus checks. That includes the viral claims about specific dollar amounts like $1,702 or $1,399 dollars that continue to circulate online.
Trump’s tariff dividend and DOGE ideas remain on paper
President Donald Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of sending every American a two thousand dollar tariff funded “dividend”. The pitch sounds simple. Tariffs go up, foreign companies pay, and Washington mails out checks.
The math is less simple. A November 2025 analysis highlighted by Fox stations and based on work from the Tax Foundation estimated that a nationwide dividend would cost between about $280 and $600 billion dollars, depending on how it is structured. Projected tariff revenue for 2025 and 2026 falls far short of that total.
Democrats on Congress’s Joint Economic Committee estimate that import taxes have already cost the average household nearly $1,200 since Trump returned to the White House, as higher prices filter into everyday shopping carts.
Trump also briefly talked about a DOGE dividend linked to savings from the Department of Government Efficiency, a Musk-led cost cutting experiment in the federal bureaucracy. For the most part, that idea has stalled amid skepticism from lawmakers and warnings from economists that another round of direct payments could stoke inflation by pumping extra cash into consumer spending.
Bottom line so far. Neither a tariff dividend nor a DOGE dividend has been approved by Congress, and no such checks are in the pipeline right now.
The money that did land: Warrior Dividend and Coast Guard bonus
One set of payments did arrive in late 2025. The $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” for about one and a half million service members is real, and it is tax free. According to Pentagon and IRS statements, the money came from a $2.9 billion boost to the military housing budget inside Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” law, not from tariff or DOGE revenue.
Troops received the payment as an extra housing allowance, and the IRS has now confirmed that it counts as a qualified military benefit that does not need to be reported as income on a tax return.
Members of the United States Coast Guard are also getting a separate one time “Devotion to Duty” payment of $2,000. That bonus is taxable and functions more like regular special duty pay, with take-home income closer to $1,776 dollars after withholding.
These targeted programs are part of why social media is full of screenshots that look like surprise stimulus checks, even though they reach only a narrow slice of Americans.
Scams fill the silence in everyone else’s inbox
Where there is confusion, scammers move in. The Federal Trade Commission and the IRS both report a fresh wave of texts and emails that dangle “unclaimed refunds” or “new stimulus payments” and push people to click a link.
Real tax agencies do not start conversations by text, direct message or random email. They begin with a mailed notice that you can verify through an official online account or by calling a published number. They do not ask for gift cards, cryptocurrency or immediate payment over the phone.
Some viral posts about a $1,776 “stimulus” actually point back to state programs, such as Alaska’s oil-funded dividend, which only residents of Alaska receive. Others are pure phishing set ups that try to steal bank logins and Social Security numbers.
If a message promises easy money in exchange for your personal data, experts say your safest move is to delete it and go straight to irs.gov or your state revenue site to check any real refund.
Your actual refund could be bigger this year
There is one genuinely bright spot. Even without a new stimulus program, many taxpayers are on track for larger refunds in the 2026 filing season. The IRS says the average refund last year was $3,167. Thanks to recent tax law changes, analysts expect this year’s average to be roughly one thousand dollars higher for many filers.
Key pieces behind that projection include a Child Tax Credit of up to $2,200 per qualifying child, an Additional Child Tax Credit of up to $1,700 for families with low tax bills, and expanded standard deductions.
Eligibility still depends on income. For example, a single worker with no children must earn $19,104 or less to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, while a married couple filing jointly with three or more children must earn $68,675 or less.
Most EITC and child credit refunds should reach bank accounts by early March for those who e-file and choose direct deposit, although some banks may move faster than others.
So if you are trying to sort the real money from the noise, start with your own tax return. File, check the official “Where’s My Refund” tool, and treat every unsolicited message about surprise stimulus like a red flag. In practical terms, that is the money you can actually plan a grocery run or a utility bill around.
The official statement was published by the Federal Trade Commission.
