American importers flooded the federal government’s new IEEPA tariff refund system with more than 11.2 million entries in under a week, according to a court declaration filed April 28 with the U.S. Court of International Trade in Manhattan.
Of those, approximately 1,740,000 entries cleared all validations and now move through the formal refund pipeline, the filing states.
Brandon Lord, Executive Director of the Commercial Programs Directorate at CBP’s Office of Trade, submitted that declaration in the case Euro-Notions Florida, Inc. v. United States (Court No. 25-00595), before Senior Judge Richard K. Eaton.
The figures reveal the enormous scale of demand for IEEPA tariff refunds, and the equally enormous operational challenge CBP faces in delivering them.
The Legal Backdrop: A Landmark Ruling
The push for IEEPA tariff refunds traces directly to a historic Supreme Court decision. On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs without clear congressional authorization.
The court emphasized that the Constitution assigns to Congress the power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises”. It concluded that imposing broad-based tariffs requires explicit statutory delegation.
According to CBP and court filings, approximately 330,000 importers paid or deposited an estimated $166 billion in IEEPA duties across more than 53 million entries.
However, the ruling left critical questions open. The Supreme Court’s February 20 decision did not specify when, how, or whether refunds must be paid, leaving that issue entirely to the lower courts.
Following the ruling, President Trump issued an executive order terminating the additional duties previously imposed under IEEPA and then invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a temporary 10% duty on most goods entering the United States.
How the Court of International Trade Stepped In
With the Supreme Court silent on refunds, the U.S. Court of International Trade moved to fill the gap.
On March 4, 2026, the CIT directed CBP to issue refunds via normal administrative procedures. Two days later, the court suspended that order to give CBP time to develop a new refund process within its Automated Commercial Environment system.
The CIT initially used Atmus Filtration v. United States as its lead case. However, parties in that case settled, prompting the court to designate Euro-Notions Florida v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection as the new lead case in early April 2026.
The court entered a refund order on April 7, 2026. Still, it simultaneously stated that the order “is suspended to the extent that it requires immediate compliance,” effectively extending the government’s deadline to appeal.
Critically, no court order currently directs immediate IEEPA tariff refunds, and the Trump administration retains the right to appeal any such order to a higher court.
Related Article: Tariffs Drive Supply Chain Disruption for 86% of Industry Leaders
CBP Builds CAPE to Handle Unprecedented Volume
Rather than process refunds entry by entry, CBP built an entirely new tool. CBP developed CAPE within ACE to consolidate refunds of IEEPA duties, including interest, rather than processing them on an entry-by-entry basis.
CBP noted that processing this volume of refunds under its existing procedures would require 4,431,161 working hours, equivalent to more than 533,000 eight-hour working days. That staggering figure explains why the agency requested extra time to build CAPE before complying with the court’s order.
Phase 1 of CAPE covers certain unliquidated entries and certain entries within 80 days of liquidation. CBP plans to address more complex scenarios in later phases, though no date has been set for Phase 2.
CAPE Goes Live: The Numbers So Far
Lord’s court declaration provides the clearest public snapshot of the system’s early performance.
CAPE went live at 7:11 a.m. Eastern on April 20, 2026, and ACE recorded approximately a 70% spike in daily log-ins compared to its previous record, according to Lord’s filing.
As of 8 p.m. Eastern on April 26, importers and brokers had submitted 75,306 CAPE declarations, of which 47,315 passed initial file validations, Lord stated.
Those validated declarations cover 11,222,927 individual import entries subject to IEEPA duties, all accepted for removal of those duties through CAPE, per Lord’s declaration.
Out of those accepted entries, approximately 1,740,000 have been liquidated and entered the formal refund pipeline, according to Lord. Meanwhile, 2,124,394 entries failed entry-specific validations and did not qualify at this stage.
Lord confirmed that CAPE operated with near-perfect uptime, with only one 18-minute interruption on April 20, during which CBP reconfigured resources to optimize processing capacity.
What Rejections Really Mean and Why They Matter
The roughly 2.1 million rejected entries deserve careful attention from food importers and trade professionals alike.
ACE checks each entry to confirm it exists in the system, that at least one dutiable IEEPA Chapter 99 HTS code appears on the entry, and that no entry summary number is duplicated in the same or a prior declaration. Failures on any of these checks result in rejection.
Importantly, rejection does not mean a permanent denial. Applicants can download a Validation Result File to identify issues, correct them, and resubmit a new declaration.
Still, trade experts caution against rushing. Early observations suggest CBP is distinguishing between submissions that are internally consistent and well-supported versus those with classification errors, valuation inconsistencies, or country-of-origin issues.
CAPE is not a passive system. It serves as the front-end intake for a CBP review and validation process, and processing activity does not eliminate review risk.
The Appeal Risk Looming Over All Claims
Beyond validation issues, a broader legal threat clouds the entire refund process.
The government has until approximately June 7, 2026, to appeal Judge Eaton’s refund order to the Federal Circuit, and practitioners widely expect it to do so once the CIT lifts its current suspension of the underlying order.
The government is expected to argue that the CIT cannot issue relief extending to all importers, regardless of whether they filed suit, drawing on the Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in Trump v. CASA, Inc., which curtailed the availability of nationwide injunctions.
CBP has also consistently made clear that it will issue validated IEEPA tariff refunds only “pursuant to court order,” a formulation that signals the government has not voluntarily committed to repaying all importers who paid these duties.
Timing, Taxes, and Next Steps for Importers
CBP expects refunds to be issued within 60 to 90 days following acceptance of a CAPE Declaration, unless a compliance concern requires further review.
An importer filing a clean CAPE Declaration in late April can realistically expect funds sometime between mid-July and mid-August 2026, assuming CBP holds to that estimate, a timeline that does not account for any potential Federal Circuit stay.
Importers should also consider unexpected downstream consequences. Under the tax benefit rule, importers who paid and deducted IEEPA tariffs in 2025 and receive refunds in 2026 may need to treat those refunds as taxable income.
For food retailers and importers specifically, the stakes are high. The food sector ranks among the largest categories of U.S. trade, and companies that imported products subject to IEEPA duties from February 2025 onward stand to recover high costs, provided they act quickly, file accurately, and closely monitor both the legal proceedings and future CAPE phases.