On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court struck down the “Liberation Day” and other tariffs imposed by the administration in February and April 2025 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). On March 4, Judge Richard Eaton at the Court of International Trade (CIT) ordered the administration to begin the process of refunding importers in Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States Customs and Border Protection, 1:26-cv-01259. On March 6, however, Judge Eaton suspended his order after a representative of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) filed a declaration stating that CBP had no infrastructure to practicably process the refunds. 

On March 12, a CBP representative provided the contours of a procedure for the government to process and issue refunds. He said that CBP was developing a new system for processing refunds called the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE). The CAPE system will operate in four phases: electronic claim submission, mass processing, a review of the submissions that make it through mass processing, and payment of refunds. CBP stated that the respective phases ranged from 40% to 80% complete. 

In a prior declaration on March 6, CBP stated that 330,000 importers had paid or deposited tariffs under IEEPA in more than 53 million instances. He stated that importers had paid roughly $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs, now invalidated by the Supreme Court. He estimated in that filing that it would take 4,431,161 man hours to manually complete the refunds. CBP stated in that filing that he hoped an automated process would be functional in 45 days and save more than 4,000,000 man hours. He noted the last time the government was required to issue mass refunds, in United States Shoe Corporation v. United States (1998), the process took several years. 

While the March 12 filing does provide a framework for automated processing, it sheds very little light on when CBP will be able and willing to start paying the refunds. Notably, importers who paid the unlawful IEEPA tariffs are also entitled to interest, which CBP has acknowledged. The high dollar-amount of the refunds means that the interest could easily add up to billions of dollars. Further complicating matters, immediately after the Supreme Court ruling, the administration imposed 10% percent tariffs on imports under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. These tariffs can only remain in place for 150 days. This may add a layer of complexity to the refund calculations. 

GCT is monitoring the situation and ready to assist you with your refund claims.