TurboTax printing problems: how to print or save your return

Why won't TurboTax print my return?

TurboTax printing problems usually come from one of four places: unpaid fees in TurboTax Online, a browser that blocks or garbles the PDF, an outdated TurboTax Desktop, or the printer itself. TurboTax never sends pages straight to a printer from Online; it builds a PDF, and your PDF reader does the printing. So the fastest test is to save the PDF and open it on its own.

How to use the TurboTax Print Center in Online

The TurboTax Print Center is the screen in TurboTax Online that builds a PDF of your return. Intuit's steps are below. On a phone, the Tax Tools menu is behind the menu icon in the upper left.

1. Open your return and select Continue or Start from Tax Home.
2. Choose Tax Tools, then Print Center.
3. Select Print, save, or preview this year's return.
4. Pay any TurboTax fees if asked. Intuit states the print option requires payment first.
5. Choose whether to include worksheets, then let the PDF open.
6. Save the PDF to your computer, then print it from the PDF reader's print button.

If you want every supporting schedule, tick the option to include government and TurboTax worksheets. The shorter version without worksheets is what most people need for records, a loan application or a paper filing.

TurboTax print return steps in Desktop

TurboTax Desktop prints from the File menu. Open the return, choose File, then Print/Save for Your Records, and pick Save As PDF or Preview Print Copy. Saving as PDF is the more reliable route, because it separates TurboTax from the printer.

When Desktop freezes or shows an error while printing, install all TurboTax updates first; Intuit lists that as a step for Desktop printing trouble. If updates will not install, fix that problem before printing, using TurboTax won't update.

TurboTax PDF download not working: blank or missing files

A PDF that downloads blank, or does not download at all, is nearly always a browser issue rather than a problem with your return. Work through these in order and test after each one.

1. Sign out of TurboTax completely, clear the browser cache and cookies, then sign back in and print again.
2. Try a different browser, such as Edge instead of Chrome or the reverse.
3. Allow pop-ups and downloads for the TurboTax site in the browser's site settings.
4. Choose save instead of preview, then open the saved file from your Downloads folder in a dedicated PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader rather than inside the browser.
5. On Windows, check which program is the default for PDF files; updates sometimes switch it back to the browser.

For returns you already filed, you do not need the Print Center. TurboTax Online keeps the past seven years under Tax Home, Your tax returns & documents, with a Download/print return (PDF) link for each year. The full walkthrough is on download a prior-year tax return from TurboTax.

TurboTax not printing my tax returns: printer driver problems

If the PDF looks right on screen but nothing prints, TurboTax is no longer involved. Intuit's own first check is to print something else; if that fails too, the fix is on the printer side.

Intuit's troubleshooting page adds three steps: shut the computer and printer down for 30 seconds and turn them back on, make sure the printer and the computer have all updates installed, and in Desktop, make sure TurboTax itself is updated. If the printer still refuses, copy the PDF to a USB drive or email it to yourself and print it from another device.

Keep a PDF of every year you print

Once you have a clean PDF, store it outside the TurboTax folder. That same PDF is what other software imports if you switch products next year. If you stay with TurboTax, last year's data carries forward through your account or data file instead; see TurboTax import previous year. Desktop users should keep the matching data file too, as explained on the TurboTax .tax file page.

All the ways data moves in and out of TurboTax are summarized in our TurboTax import guide.