If I’m not mistaken (bc I selected it to & been doing a lot of googling myself expecting differently myself) but from what I’ve gathered is when checking your refund status with the “where’s my refund” tool once the 2nd step process is showing approval from irs they’ll give you a refund expected date & the “5 day early” will apply to that date. So after waiting forever for them to approve on that website lol your 5 days apply to that.
trust me I’ve been wracking my brain too bc my approval isn’t even there yet
