White House to begin processing $166B IEEPA tariff refunds on May 12
- U.S. Customs is preparing the first IEEPA tariff refunds for around May 11 after launching the CAPE claims portal on April 20. - The pool is huge — about $166 billion — and a trade court filing says roughly 21% of claims are accepted so far. - This turns a legal win into a cash event, but portal access, ACH setup, and claim validation still decide who gets paid fast.
Tariff refunds are finally moving from theory to money. That is the real news here. After the Supreme Court shut down the Trump administration’s use of IEEPA tariffs on February 20, the government had to figure out how to unwind a giant pile of already-collected duties. Now U.S. Customs and Border Protection has a live refund system, and the first payments are expected to start hitting bank accounts around May 11. (kpmg.com) ### What is actually being refunded? These are duties collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — IEEPA — after a run of 2025 and early-2026 executive orders tied to China, Mexico, Canada, Venezuelan oil, “reciprocal” tariffs, and sever(kpmg.com)ff-setting power. The White House then issued an order ending those tariff actions. (kpmg.com) ### Why is the number so big? Because this was not a niche tariff program. The government is estimated to owe back about $166 billion to importers. That is why this matters beyond trade lawyers — for some companies this is balance-sheet money, not a bookkeeping adjustment. A delayed refund can mean tighter cash flow, more borrowing, or postponed inventory orders. (cbsnews.com) ### How do companies get the money back? Through a new CBP tool called CAPE — short for Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries — inside the ACE portal. Importers or the customs brokers who filed their entries upload a CSV list of entry numbers. If the declaration validates, ACE upda(cbsnews.com)t is owed back, including interest. (cbp.gov) ### Why does the portal matter so much? Because this is the bottleneck. CBP built CAPE to avoid processing millions of entries one by one. It launched Phase 1 on April 20, 2026, and that first phase only covers certain unliquidated entries and certain entries within 80 days of liquidation. So(cbp.gov)e current phase and whether the filing data matches what Customs expects. (cbp.gov) ### So why are some importers still stuck? Turns out the hard part is not just legal eligibility. It is administrative readiness. Companies need an ACE portal account, and they need separate ACH refund banking information on file — payment details alone are not enough. Some importers also ran(cbp.gov)owed a refund” and “getting paid this month” can be as boring as missing bank setup. (cbp.gov) ### How far along is the process? Far enough to matter, but not far enough to relax. A court filing described by CBS says roughly 21% of IEEPA refund requests have been accepted so far, and about 3% had already reached the refund stage. That is progress, but it also tells you most claims are still somewhere in the queue, under review, or blocked by filing issues. (cbsnews.com) ### What should importers be watching now? Three things — whether their entries are in scope for the current CAPE phase, whether their ACE and ACH information is clean, and whether their customs broker actually filed the declaration correctly. CAPE allows batches of up to 9,999 entries per declara(cbsnews.com)assive reconciliation project disguised as a refund program. (cbp.gov) ### Bottom line The legal fight is mostly over. The operational fight just started. For importers, May is when the IEEPA ruling stops being abstract and starts showing up — or failing to show up — in the bank account. (cbsnews.com)
