Tariff refund tool will go live on April 20, US customs says

[LOS ANGELES] Importers seeking tariff refunds will be able to begin filing their requests on Apr 20, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Friday (Apr 10).

In the first phase, the CBP’s Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries tool, called Cape, will process paperwork for certain straightforward and recent import entries, leaving more complex refund scenarios for later.

The move comes as the administration looks to comply with the February ruling by the US Supreme Court that threw out duties that President Donald Trump had imposed using emergency powers. More than 53 million import entries included those tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, underscoring the scale of what could become the largest repayment by the US government in its history.

In March, the Court of International Trade ordered the federal government to refund as much as US$170 billion, plus interest, paid by roughly 330,000 importers. Since then, CBP has been providing updates to the court on the Cape process, seeking to detail how it will handle that challenge.

“CBP plans to implement CAPE through a phased development approach, adding more functionality in subsequent phases for more complicated scenarios,” the agency said in a statement. “Cape Phase 1 is limited to certain unliquidated entries and certain entries within 80 days of liquidation.”

Refund declarations will be limited to the official importer-of-record or their customs broker, and the filer must already have an account set up with CBP’s Automated Commercial Environment. Importers must also have enrolled their bank details in a separate ACE portal to receive a refund digitally. BLOOMBERG