If you paid tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act during President Trump’s second term, you are legally entitled to a refund after the Supreme Court struck those tariffs down on February 20, 2026 — but whether you can actually collect depends on when your entries were liquidated and whether you filed suit yourself. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is processing IEEPA tariff refunds in bulk through a new system called CAPE for most unliquidated and recently liquidated entries, while importers with older, finalized, or more complex entries remain caught in an unresolved court battle over how broadly refund relief should reach.
Why the Refunds Are Owed
On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.1 Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, held that IEEPA’s list of authorized actions does not include taxing imports, and that the word “regulate” does not encompass the power to tax. A three-justice plurality added that imposing tariffs of this scale would require clear congressional authorization under the major questions doctrine, which IEEPA does not provide.
The ruling wiped out the legal basis for the “Liberation Day” tariffs the president had imposed by executive order on April 2, 2025, including the 10 percent baseline tariff that took effect April 5 and the higher country-specific rates that hit 57 nations starting April 9. More than $130 billion in duties had already been collected under those tariffs by the time the Court ruled.
The Supreme Court did not set up a refund process. That job fell to the Court of International Trade and to CBP.
Which Entries Qualify for a Refund
On March 4, 2026, Judge Richard K. Eaton of the Court of International Trade ordered CBP to liquidate all unliquidated entries without applying the IEEPA tariffs, and to reliquidate entries whose liquidation was not yet final.
A follow-up ruling on March 20 drew the key line: entries whose liquidation had already become final are not covered by the order. In practice, “final” means the 180-day window to file a protest has passed with no protest filed. For those entries, Judge Eaton directed importers to pursue the standard administrative protest remedy rather than relief through his order.
Three categories of entries therefore behave very differently:
- Unliquidated entries and entries liquidated within roughly the past 80 days are the easiest to recover through CBP’s bulk process.
- Entries liquidated longer ago but still within the 180-day protest window can be pursued through a protest.
- Entries past the 180-day window with no protest filed are the hardest, and are the subject of ongoing litigation over whether courts can order refunds at all.
How to Get a Refund Through CAPE
CBP built the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system, or CAPE, inside its existing Automated Commercial Environment to process IEEPA refunds in bulk rather than entry by entry. Phase 1 of CAPE launched on April 20, 2026. It covers unliquidated entries and entries liquidated within the preceding 80 days, which CBP estimated represented about 63 percent of affected entries.
By late March, roughly 26,600 importers had enrolled, covering about $120 billion in principal duties. CBP said refunds would issue within 60 to 90 days of a declaration’s acceptance.
If your entries fall within CAPE’s coverage, enrollment in the system is the direct path to a refund, and no individual lawsuit is required. CBP handles the reliquidation and pays back the duty.
What to Do If Your Entries Fall Outside CAPE
CAPE does not cover every entry. Entries involving drawback claims, reconciliation, or that were finally liquidated before the coverage window are excluded. That gap has become the central refund fight.
Importers in the excluded categories have taken two routes. Large companies including Nissan North America and FedEx filed their own suits at the Court of International Trade seeking full refunds. By mid-2026, more than 2,000 refund-related cases had piled up at the court.
The second route is a proposed class action. On June 4, 2026, Terry Precision Cycling, one of the original small-business plaintiffs in V.O.S. Selections, moved to certify a class under Rule 23(b)(2) of all importers who paid IEEPA tariffs and whose claims are not eligible for CAPE processing. The motion argued that forcing tens of thousands of identically situated importers to file individual lawsuits would produce an “absurd result,” and that limiting refunds to named plaintiffs would violate the Constitution’s Uniformity Clause. That motion is pending.
For importers with entries outside CAPE and outside the protest window, the practical options right now are to file an individual suit at the Court of International Trade or to wait and see whether the class is certified.
The Government’s Push to Limit Refunds
The Trump administration is actively trying to narrow who can collect. The government’s position is that under the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., which restricted federal courts from issuing universal injunctions, courts can order refunds only for importers who individually filed suit. Anything broader, the government argues, is a prohibited universal remedy.
On May 29, 2026, the administration appealed Judge Eaton’s refund order to the Federal Circuit on those grounds. The government has also argued that CBP lacks legal authority to pay refunds on liquidated and final entries without an importer-specific court order, and has signaled it will seek a stay of any adverse ruling.
The Court of International Trade has not been receptive so far. On June 11, 2026, it denied a further government motion to stay enforcement of the refund judgment in a related case. The class certification motion and the government’s Federal Circuit appeal both remain unresolved, and their outcome will decide whether importers who never filed their own suit can recover on entries outside CAPE.
What’s at Stake and Where Things Stand
The total pool of collected IEEPA duties exceeds $130 billion. CAPE enrollment already covers about $120 billion of that in principal duties, meaning most of the money is on a defined administrative track, even if actual payment takes 60 to 90 days after each declaration is accepted.
The contested slice is the remainder: entries past the protest window, entries tied up in drawback or reconciliation, and importers who for any reason cannot use CAPE. For that group, recovery depends on the Federal Circuit’s ruling on the government’s appeal and on whether the Terry Precision Cycling class is certified. Until those questions are answered, the safest path for an importer with excluded entries is to preserve the claim, either by filing a protest within the 180-day window if it is still open, or by filing suit at the Court of International Trade.
One boundary worth noting: this refund process applies only to tariffs collected under IEEPA. Tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 or Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 were not struck down by the Supreme Court and are not refundable through CAPE or through the V.O.S. Selections litigation. The February 2026 ruling was specific to IEEPA, and courts have historically upheld the president’s authority under Section 232 and Section 301, including the Federal Circuit’s September 2025 decision affirming Section 301 tariffs on China. If your duties were assessed under one of those authorities, they are not part of this refund fight.