If your business paid US tariffs on imported food between early 2025 and February 2026, you may be owed a refund \u2014 and the process to claim it is now live and moving fast. Here is where the IEEPA tariff refund stands as of late July 2026, and what importers should do before the window closes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In February 2026, the US Supreme Court struck down the tariffs that had been imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Because those duties were ruled invalid, CBP was ordered to refund them. The refundable duties cover the IEEPA “fentanyl” tariffs paid since February 4, 2025, and the “reciprocal” tariffs paid since April 5, 2025, running through February 24, 2026 \u2014 the date the IEEPA tariffs were replaced by the later Section 122 surcharge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For any importer who paid the 10% IEEPA duty on Japanese-origin food during that period, those amounts are potentially recoverable, with statutory interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CBP built a dedicated tool to handle refunds at scale: the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, or CAPE<\/strong>, inside the ACE Secure Data Portal. Rather than processing entry-by-entry, importers submit a “CAPE Declaration” \u2014 a CSV file listing the entries they are claiming \u2014 through the CAPE tab in ACE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CAPE Phase 1 opened on April 20, 2026, and the system is now proven at scale. As of mid-July 2026, CBP had accepted well over $100 billion in claims for processing and repaid tens of billions to importers, including interest. Accepted claims are typically refunded within roughly 60 to 90 days, unless a compliance issue triggers further review. All CBP refunds are now issued electronically via ACH, so enrolling your bank details in ACE is a prerequisite to getting paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The refund rollout has been phased by the liquidation status of each entry. Phase 1 handled unliquidated entries and those within 80 days of liquidation. The most recent and significant development concerns Phase 3<\/strong>, which covers “finally liquidated” entries \u2014 older entries liquidated more than 80 days before the refund period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On July 17, 2026, the Court of International Trade ordered CBP to reliquidate and refund these older entries \u2014 but critically, this Phase 3 relief applies only to importers who have filed refund lawsuits at the CIT. CBP is required to report on Phase 3 progress on August 4, 2026. Separately, the government has appealed part of the underlying refund order to the Federal Circuit, so some aspects of the process remain subject to ongoing litigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The practical takeaway: if your older entries have already finally liquidated and you have not filed suit, they may fall outside the automatic CAPE process \u2014 making the deadlines below all the more important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The single biggest mistake importers are making in 2026 is treating this as an open-ended process. It is not. The path to a refund depends on each entry’s liquidation status:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because entries from late 2025 are hitting their 180-day protest deadlines through mid-to-late 2026, some importers are running out of time on their oldest, often largest, entries right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IEEPA refund process is real, funded, and paying out \u2014 CBP has already returned tens of billions of dollars. But it is not automatic for every entry, and the deadlines are unforgiving. Food importers who paid IEEPA duties on Japanese or other imports should audit their entries now, confirm which refund path applies, and act before the protest clock runs out. A container’s worth of refunded duty is worth the afternoon it takes to check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax, or customs advice. Refund eligibility, amounts, and deadlines are determined by CBP and the courts and are subject to ongoing litigation; consult a licensed customs broker or trade attorney about your specific entries.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If your business paid US tariffs on imported food between early 2025 and February 2026, you may be owed a refund \u2014 and the\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-column","tag-tariffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29,"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/29"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1414usa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Phase 3 Development \u2014 and Why It Matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Deadlines Importers Are Missing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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What Food Importers Should Do This Week<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Bottom Line<\/h2>\n\n\n\n