The unique and promising properties of semiconducting organometal halide perovskites have brought these materials to the forefront of solar energy research. Here, we present new insights into the excited-state properties of CH₃NH₃PbI₃ thin films through femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy measurements. The photoinduced bleach recovery at 760 nm reveals that band-edge recombination follows second-order kinetics, indicating that the dominant relaxation pathway is via recombination of free electrons and holes. Additionally, charge accumulation in the perovskite films leads to an increase in the intrinsic bandgap that follows the Burstein–Moss band filling model. Both the recombination mechanism and the band-edge shift are studied as a function of the photogenerated carrier density and serve to elucidate the behaviour of charge carriers in hybrid perovskites. These results offer insights into the intrinsic photophysics of semiconducting organometal halide perovskites with direct implications for photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications.