U.S. begins paying tariff refunds; 75,000 claims filed under $166B program

Tariff refunds are finally moving from theory to cash. U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened its CAPE portal on April 20, and the first payments tied to voided IEEPA tariffs are expected to start landing around May 11. That matters because this is not some niche customs cleanup — it is a roughly $166 billion refund problem created after the Supreme Court ruled on February 20 that IEEPA did not authorize those tariffs. ### What exactly changed this week? The big shift is that the refund process is no longer just a court order on paper. Judge Richard Eaton told the Court of International Trade that accepted claims have started moving into the actual refund pipeline, and Treasury payments could begin around May 11. In other words, importers are crossing from “eligible someday” into “money may actually hit the bank.” ### What are these refunds for? They cover tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — IEEPA. The Supreme Court said in Learning Resources v. Trump that IEEPA does not give a president tariff power, which blew up the legal basis for a huge pile of duties already collected. After that, the Court of International Trade ordered Customs to build a way to give the money back. ### What is CAPE? CAPE is the new refund tool inside ACE, Customs’ trade portal. It is basically a bulk-processing system for claims, so Customs does not have to unwind millions of entries one by one. Phase 1 launched April 20 and covers certain unliquidated entries plus some entries still within 80 days of liquidation. Filers upload a CSV list of entries, not a giant packet of narrative paperwork. ### How far along is the process? Early, but real. Eaton said about 21% of IEEPA duty refund requests had been accepted, and 3% had already reached the refund stage. Bloomberg’s summary framed the number a little differently — 21% of import entries had been accepted for duty removal — but the practical point is the same: a meaningful slice of claims is getting through, though most still are not. ### Why are some claims getting stuck? The portal launch was messy. Some importers ran into account-access problems, long support waits, and setup issues around ACH and ACE credentials. That is the catch with a program this large — the legal win was simple, but the plumbing is not. Customs also built CAPE in phases, which means some more complicated scenarios still sit outside the first release. ### How big is this, really? Huge. Skadden notes that more than 330,000 importers paid IEEPA duties across more than 53 million entries. The refund pool is around $165 billion to $166 billion, which makes this one of the biggest customs unwind events the U.S. has ever had to manage. For some companies, this is balance-sheet repair. For others, it is working capital they thought was gone for good. ### Does accepted mean paid? Not yet. Acceptance means Customs has validated the claim and updated the relevant entries to remove the IEEPA duty lines. Payment still has to move through the refund process and then Treasury. So “accepted” is a real milestone, but it is not the same as cash settled. ### What matters next? Two things. First, whether payment timing around May 11 holds in practice. Second, whether later CAPE phases can handle the harder claims without bogging down. The legal question is mostly settled. Now the whole story is operational. It transforms a court-ordered tariff refund into actual disbursements. But the process is still part conveyor belt, part traffic jam — and importers are watching their claim status like it is earnings season.