Customs to start refunding invalidated Section 301 tariffs on May 11

Tariff refunds are finally moving from theory to cash. U.S. Customs and Border Protection told the Court of International Trade that payments for the invalidated Trump tariffs should start going out on or around May 11. That matters because importers have spent weeks in a weird limbo — the Supreme Court already said the government collected these duties unlawfully, but nobody had a working system to return the money. Now there is one, at least for the first batch of claims. (spectrumlocalnews.com) ### Which tariffs are being refunded? These are the tariffs Trump imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — IEEPA — including the broad “Liberation Day” tariffs and the fentanyl-related duties on goods from China, Mexico, and Canada. On Februar(spectrumlocalnews.com)d the refund machinery. (congress.gov) ### Why did this take so long? Because customs systems are built to collect duties entry by entry, not unwind a giant nationwide tax after the fact. CBP had to build new functionality inside ACE — the trade platform importers already use — and create a separate CAPE process to bundle refund requests, validate entries, strip out the IE(congress.gov)P had to invent the plumbing. (cbp.gov) ### What changed this week? The big update is timing. Judge Richard Eaton said after a closed conference that CBP expects to begin issuing payments around May 11, and he ordered another status report by May 12. CBP also gave the court some real operating numbers — more than 75,000 refund claims filed by Sunday evening, with more than (cbp.gov)g an actual payment program instead of a placeholder portal. (spectrumlocalnews.com) ### How does the portal actually work? Phase 1 of CAPE launched on April 20, 2026. It is limited — certain unliquidated entries and certain entries within 80 days of liquidation go first. Importers of record or their customs brokers file a CSV through the ACE Secure Data Portal, not through the usual ABI channel. Each declaration can include up to 9,999 entries, and filers can submit multiple declarations. (cbp.gov) ### Who gets the money? Importers do. Not shoppers standing in a checkout line months later. A tariff is legally paid by the importer of record, so the refund goes back through that chain. Some companies may pass the money along through lower prices, credits, or negotiated adjustments — UPS, FedEx, and Costco have signaled they will in some cases — but there is no automatic consumer rebate coming. (usatoday.com) ### So will prices fall? Probably not in any clean, immediate way. Prices moved for lots of reasons while the tariffs were in place — freight, inventory timing, contracts, and plain old margin protection. A refund helps company cash flow first. If a retailer already sold through tariff-loaded inventory, the c(usatoday.com) tariff at the register. (usatoday.com) ### Why is Section 301 still hanging over this? Because the administration is already building a replacement route. In March, USTR opened new Section 301 investigations into foreign practices tied to manufacturing overcapacity and forced labor enforcement. Section 301 is slower and more procedural than IEEPA — hearings, com(usatoday.com)uties and still try to impose new ones tomorrow under a different statute. (ustr.gov) ### Bottom line May 11 looks like the moment the tariff unwind becomes real money. But this is not the end of the trade fight — it is the handoff from one legal tool that failed to another one the administration hopes will stick. (spectrumlocalnews.com)