More than 330,000 importers who collectively paid roughly $166 billion under tariffs the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional can begin filing refund claims Monday morning through a new federal portal, but the process promises to be slow, technical, and fraught with bureaucratic risk for businesses already squeezed by months of cash they may never fully recover.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection will open the online system at 8 a.m., the Associated Press reported, allowing importers and their brokers to submit declarations listing goods and related document numbers tied to tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If CBP approves a claim, the agency said refunds will take 60 to 90 days to arrive.
That timeline matters. For small businesses that absorbed thousands of dollars in tariff costs rather than raise prices on customers, a two- to three-month wait, after already going without that money for the better part of a year, is not relief. It is a promissory note from the same government that collected the money in the first place.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on February 20 that President Donald Trump exceeded his constitutional authority last April when he set new import tax rates on products from nearly every other country, citing the U.S. trade deficit as a national emergency under a 1977 emergency powers law. The majority found he had usurped Congress's tax-setting role. A judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade followed up last month by determining that companies subjected to those IEEPA tariffs were entitled to their money back.
The administration moved quickly after the ruling. Hours after the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA trade orders, President Trump signed a separate global ten percent tariff under different legal authority, a move that underscored the White House's determination to maintain trade leverage even as courts forced a retreat on the original mechanism.
The scale of what CBP now faces is staggering. Court filings show the agency collected about $166 billion on more than 53 million shipments from those 330,000-plus importers. As of April 14, only 56,497 importers had completed registration and were eligible for refunds totaling $127 billion, including interest. That means roughly 275,000 importers had not yet registered, and the portal had not yet opened.
Court filings described CBP as facing "an unprecedented volume of refunds," the Washington Examiner reported. The agency developed a new automated tool, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system, or CAPE, inside its existing Automated Commercial Environment to handle the load. CBP said the system was designed so importers would need to make only minimal submissions.
But "minimal" is relative. Meghann Supino, a partner at the law firm Ice Miller, said her firm has advised clients to carefully list every document number for forms sent to CBP describing imported goods and their value. One bad entry, she warned, could sink an entire claim.
"If there is an entry on that file that does not qualify, it may cause the entire entry to be rejected or that line item might be rejected by Customs."
Supino also cautioned that Monday's launch could be bumpy. She told the AP she expected "some hiccups with the program" given the level of interest, and urged businesses to stay patient.
The broader question of whether the government's existing infrastructure could handle this at all was raised weeks ago. Brandon Lord, a top CBP official, told the court in a filing that a fully automatic refund process using the agency's current system would require more than four million labor hours and was not feasible, the New York Post reported in March. That reality forced CBP to build the CAPE system on an accelerated timeline, roughly 45 days, to avoid requiring every importer to file a separate lawsuit.
For Brad Jackson, co-founder of After Action Cigars in Rochester, Minnesota, the refund portal cannot open fast enough. His company imports cigars and accessories from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Jackson said he paid $34,000 in tariffs last year and absorbed much of the cost rather than raise prices on customers.
He started compiling records and preparing to enter information into the system the moment CBP announced the launch date. But his confidence in the process is limited.
"My main concern is the turnaround time. A refund process that takes several months to complete doesn't solve the cash flow problem that it is supposed to fix."
Jackson's frustration is grounded in experience. He said he had a two-week delay in a shipment last spring because of a single missing document. For a small importer, that kind of disruption compounds fast. Thirty-four thousand dollars may not register on a Fortune 500 balance sheet. For a cigar company in southern Minnesota, it is the difference between growth and treading water.
The broader clash between the administration and the courts over tariff authority has left businesses caught in the middle, paying taxes one branch of government imposed and another branch struck down, then waiting for a third branch to process the refund.
The government said it will process refunds in phases, focusing first on more recent tariff payments. The first phase is limited to cases in which tariffs were estimated but not finalized, or within 80 days of a final accounting. That means many importers, especially those whose payments were finalized months ago, may have to wait even longer.
Nghi Huynh, the partner-in-charge of transfer pricing at accounting and consulting firm Armanino, said most companies claiming refunds will have imported a mix of items, and not all will qualify right away. She stressed the importance of meticulous record-keeping.
"Each file can include thousands of entries, but accuracy is critical, as submissions can be rejected if formatting or data is incorrect."
Then there is the consumer side. Delivery companies like FedEx and UPS collected tariffs on imports directly from individual consumers, anyone who ordered a product shipped from outside the United States. FedEx said it would return tariff refunds to customers when it receives them from CBP and plans to begin filing claims on April 20. Breitbart reported the same timeline, noting the practical gap between when businesses file and when consumers might see any money.
FedEx framed it simply: "Supporting our customers as they navigate regulatory changes remains our top priority."
Meanwhile, class-action lawsuits have already been filed against companies like Costco and Essilor Luxottica, the maker of Ray-Ban, seeking reimbursement for shoppers who paid inflated prices driven by the tariffs. Whether those suits succeed, and whether consumers ever see a dime, remains an open question.
The refund portal is the most concrete consequence yet of the Supreme Court's February ruling. The ongoing clashes between the administration and the Court have produced a string of high-profile confrontations, but this one carries a price tag measured in the hundreds of billions. CBP's own numbers, $166 billion collected, $127 billion in registered eligible refunds so far, represent real money extracted from real businesses over real goods.
The administration's decision to pivot to a different tariff mechanism after the ruling showed it was not backing away from trade enforcement. But the IEEPA tariffs, as imposed, did not survive judicial review. And the businesses that paid them, from multinational shippers to a cigar shop in Rochester, are now left navigating a government-built portal, hoping the system works, hoping the math checks out, and hoping the check arrives before the cash flow damage becomes permanent.
The Washington Times noted that the refund effort could stretch for months as CBP works through its phased approach, and Newsmax reported that the initial phase covers only certain recent or not-yet-finalized payments, leaving a large share of importers waiting in line behind those whose claims the system can handle first.
The administration's broader legal fights continue on multiple fronts. But on the tariff question, the machinery of refund has now been set in motion, however slowly.
When the government takes your money and the courts say it shouldn't have, getting it back ought to be simpler than filing thousands of line items into a brand-new portal and waiting three months. But nobody ever said the federal bureaucracy was built for speed, especially when it's returning what it already spent.
