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Websitepulse 2026 Tax Performance & Uptime Report Summary
During the 2026 tax filing season, WebSitePulse monitored the performance of nine popular tax e-filing websites - etax.com, expresstaxrefund.com, fileonline.1040.com, hrblock.com, libertytax.com, olt.com, taxact.com, taxslayer.com and turbotax.com—from three locations: Washington, DC; San Francisco, CA; and Chicago, IL, over the period April 3 through April 15, 2026.
The average response times for the entire period were as follows:
The daily average uptime for the entire group of 9 websites for the 2026 tax season was 99.86%. The daily average uptime by location is as follows:
In terms of response times, hrblock.com and fileonline.1040.com were among the fastest performing websites across all locations, with response times ranging between 3.052 and 7.577 seconds in San Francisco, 3.527 and 5.276 seconds in Chicago, and 2.474 and 4.555 seconds in Washington, DC. Etax.com and expresstaxrefund.com also showed relatively low response times, particularly in Chicago and Washington, DC, where they remained between 2.051 and 2.796 seconds.
Taxslayer.com and turbotax.com recorded response times ranging between 6.458 and 9.477 seconds depending on location, while libertytax.com ranged between 2.971 and 9.717 seconds across the three monitoring points.
Taxact.com showed higher variability, with response times between 3.419 seconds in Washington, DC and 17.822 seconds in San Francisco. Olt.com remained the slowest website throughout the monitoring period, with response times between 14.926 and 18.296 seconds in Chicago, 20.777 and 21.587 seconds in Washington, DC, and up to 30.262 seconds in San Francisco.
Overall, the 2026 results confirm the established pattern of higher response times on the West Coast and lower response times on the East Coast, while availability across all monitored websites remained consistently high, with only isolated and short disruptions.
Average Response times for the whole period
Average Uptime for the whole period
Best regards, and takeITeasy™ with WebSitePulse™
Iavor Marinoff, CEO
Methodology:
The 2026 Tax Reports reflect a complete web transaction, representative for the End Users' interactions with a website. The reporting period covers the dates between April 05 and April 16, 2026. Performance and availability measurements are made for a typical multi step web transaction at 15 minute monitoring interval, every day between the hours of 6AM and 3AM EST. Between 3AM and 6AM is the time when a scheduled maintenance most likely will be performed by IT staff and that is why we automatically suspend the monitoring process during this time every day. The WebSitePulse application monitoring service is used to collect data and to create the reports.
The steps in each transaction are comparable for all websites, and reflect the real online user and tax e-filer experience. The simultaneous monitoring is performed from 3 US-based locations of the WebSitePulse monitoring network: San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Washington, DC. In case of a detected malfunction or unavailability, the system performs automated error verification from 3 independent resources and only after the above procedure is performed and has returned consistent results, the detected error is confirmed, recorded, and included in the daily performance reports. In these cases, an advanced WebSitePulse exclusive feature comes into play - Forced Monitoring -, which automatically switches to a 3 minute monitoring interval for increased accuracy.
About WebSitePulse:
WebSitePulse is a leading provider of global, independent, and objective availability and performance monitoring of web sites, servers, network components, web applications, e-business- and email round-trip transactions.
Contact:
For more information about this report please contact:
George T., CTO
phone: 1-407-380-1600
email:
Reproduction:
WebSitePulse launched the Performance and Uptime Reports program to keep the general public and the Internet community informed about the performance of spe cific websites and the challenges their webmasters, owners and operators are facing on a daily basis, especially when the web traffic intensifies due to som e special events through the year. Some of the most popular web destinations, related to each particular event, are selected for the purpose of the Reports, and data from their performance measurements is made available on the WebSitePulse public website.
With the intention to broadly disseminate this information for the benefit of the Internet community, we encourage the use of this information without prior approval and under the following Terms and Conditions:
The Data from the performance measurements cannot be changed or manipulated and should be used "as is".
The average response times for the entire period were as follows:
- Washington DC (US East Coast) – 6.0800 sec
- San Francisco, CA (US West Coast) – 10.7111 sec
- Chicago, IL (US Central) – 6.4600 sec
The daily average uptime for the entire group of 9 websites for the 2026 tax season was 99.86%. The daily average uptime by location is as follows:
- Washington DC (US East Coast) – 99.63%
- San Francisco, CA (US West Coast) – 99.62%
- Chicago, IL (US Central) – 99.97%
In terms of response times, hrblock.com and fileonline.1040.com were among the fastest performing websites across all locations, with response times ranging between 3.052 and 7.577 seconds in San Francisco, 3.527 and 5.276 seconds in Chicago, and 2.474 and 4.555 seconds in Washington, DC. Etax.com and expresstaxrefund.com also showed relatively low response times, particularly in Chicago and Washington, DC, where they remained between 2.051 and 2.796 seconds.
Taxslayer.com and turbotax.com recorded response times ranging between 6.458 and 9.477 seconds depending on location, while libertytax.com ranged between 2.971 and 9.717 seconds across the three monitoring points.
Taxact.com showed higher variability, with response times between 3.419 seconds in Washington, DC and 17.822 seconds in San Francisco. Olt.com remained the slowest website throughout the monitoring period, with response times between 14.926 and 18.296 seconds in Chicago, 20.777 and 21.587 seconds in Washington, DC, and up to 30.262 seconds in San Francisco.
Overall, the 2026 results confirm the established pattern of higher response times on the West Coast and lower response times on the East Coast, while availability across all monitored websites remained consistently high, with only isolated and short disruptions.
Average Response times for the whole period
| # | Target | San Francisco, CA | Chicago, IL | Washington, DC | Avg. resp. time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | fileonline.1040.com | 6.113 | 3.747 | 3.018 | 4.292 |
| 2 | etax.com | 9.808 | 2.683 | 2.241 | 4.911 |
| 3 | hrblock.com | 5.886 | 4.649 | 4.284 | 4.940 |
| 4 | expresstaxrefund.com | 10.454 | 2.660 | 2.300 | 5.138 |
| 5 | libertytax.com | 6.655 | 9.183 | 3.433 | 6.424 |
| 6 | taxact.com | 13.027 | 3.885 | 3.613 | 6.842 |
| 7 | turbotax.com | 8.133 | 7.781 | 6.990 | 7.635 |
| 8 | taxslayer.com | 8.317 | 7.421 | 7.666 | 7.802 |
| 9 | olt.com | 26.495 | 16.259 | 21.075 | 21.277 |
Average Uptime for the whole period
| # | Target | San Francisco, CA | Chicago, IL | Washington, DC | Avg. uptime |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | turbotax.com | 100.000% | 100.000% | 100.000% | 100.000% |
| 2 | libertytax.com | 100.000% | 100.000% | 100.000% | 100.000% |
| 3 | olt.com | 100.000% | 100.000% | 100.000% | 100.000% |
| 4 | etax.com | 100.000% | 100.000% | 99.986% | 99.995% |
| 5 | taxslayer.com | 100.000% | 99.982% | 100.000% | 99.994% |
| 6 | hrblock.com | 99.951% | 99.946% | 99.986% | 99.961% |
| 7 | taxact.com | 99.981% | 100.000% | 99.804% | 99.928% |
| 8 | fileonline.1040.com | 99.985% | 100.000% | 98.524% | 99.503% |
| 9 | expresstaxrefund.com | 98.467% | 99.980% | 99.954% | 99.467% |
Best regards, and takeITeasy™ with WebSitePulse™
Iavor Marinoff, CEO
Methodology:
The 2026 Tax Reports reflect a complete web transaction, representative for the End Users' interactions with a website. The reporting period covers the dates between April 05 and April 16, 2026. Performance and availability measurements are made for a typical multi step web transaction at 15 minute monitoring interval, every day between the hours of 6AM and 3AM EST. Between 3AM and 6AM is the time when a scheduled maintenance most likely will be performed by IT staff and that is why we automatically suspend the monitoring process during this time every day. The WebSitePulse application monitoring service is used to collect data and to create the reports.
The steps in each transaction are comparable for all websites, and reflect the real online user and tax e-filer experience. The simultaneous monitoring is performed from 3 US-based locations of the WebSitePulse monitoring network: San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Washington, DC. In case of a detected malfunction or unavailability, the system performs automated error verification from 3 independent resources and only after the above procedure is performed and has returned consistent results, the detected error is confirmed, recorded, and included in the daily performance reports. In these cases, an advanced WebSitePulse exclusive feature comes into play - Forced Monitoring -, which automatically switches to a 3 minute monitoring interval for increased accuracy.
About WebSitePulse:
WebSitePulse is a leading provider of global, independent, and objective availability and performance monitoring of web sites, servers, network components, web applications, e-business- and email round-trip transactions.
Contact:
For more information about this report please contact:
George T., CTO
phone: 1-407-380-1600
email:
Reproduction:
WebSitePulse launched the Performance and Uptime Reports program to keep the general public and the Internet community informed about the performance of spe cific websites and the challenges their webmasters, owners and operators are facing on a daily basis, especially when the web traffic intensifies due to som e special events through the year. Some of the most popular web destinations, related to each particular event, are selected for the purpose of the Reports, and data from their performance measurements is made available on the WebSitePulse public website.
With the intention to broadly disseminate this information for the benefit of the Internet community, we encourage the use of this information without prior approval and under the following Terms and Conditions:
- WebSitePulse should be referred as the "Source" of the information;
- WebSitePulse should be acknowledged as the owner of the copyrights of the information in the Reports;
- The texts of the Reports could be changed or altered to better suit the needs and the style of the publisher without prior notice to WebSitePu lse. However, the integrity and the meaning of the information should be preserved;
The Data from the performance measurements cannot be changed or manipulated and should be used "as is".
