Tariff refunds start April 20

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will open its new tariff-refund system on April 20, letting importers start claiming back duties the Supreme Court said were collected unlawfully. (cbp.gov) The system is called Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, or CAPE, and it will run through the Automated Commercial Environment portal that importers and customs brokers already use for customs filings. In Phase 1, users will upload a comma-separated values file listing the entry numbers tied to refund claims. (cbp.gov) Customs said Phase 1 covers certain unliquidated entries and certain entries still within 80 days of liquidation, not every shipment affected by the court ruling. The agency said it will add later phases for more complicated cases. (cbp.gov) The refunds trace back to a February 20, 2026 Supreme Court decision holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the Trump administration’s broad tariffs. Reuters reported the struck-down program covered about $166 billion in duties. (bakertilly.com) (money.usnews.com) Court and agency filings show the scale of the repayment effort. More than 330,000 importers paid the tariffs on about 53 million shipments, and Customs said older systems would have required millions of labor hours to process refunds one entry at a time. (skadden.com) (cbp.gov) As of April 9, 56,497 importers had completed the process to receive electronic refunds totaling $127 billion, according to a court filing cited by Reuters and NBC News. Customs said CAPE will combine eligible refunds into a single electronic payment, with interest when applicable. (nbcnews.com) (cbp.gov) Not every importer will be paid immediately. Politico reported that most importers are not eligible for the first batch because the April 20 launch is limited to a narrower set of entries, leaving many businesses to wait for later phases or other legal routes. (politico.com) (cov.com) Customs has framed CAPE as a way to automate a court-ordered repayment job that would otherwise move too slowly through manual processing. The first real test starts April 20, when importers and brokers begin filing claims through the new portal. (cbp.gov)