CBP to Deploy IEEPA Duty Refund Claims System Next Week as Court Broadens Order

Last month, Judge Richard K. Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to refund automatically through the existing liquidation process most duties paid under tariffs unlawfully imposed pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), quickly pausing that order to allow CBP to develop a claims platform it proposed in response. Since then, Judge Eaton amended this order to cover all IEEPA duties, and CBP has updated the public on the scheduled April 20, 2026, launch of its new Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) portal, Phase 1 of which will process only certain entries covered by the original order. Still, the clock continues to tick on deadlines for action to preserve refund rights and interest continues to accrue on refunds due as importers eagerly await a full and final resolution.

Below, we explain the recent developments that led to the expected inauguration of CBP's refund platform and describe practical steps importers should take to be ready to begin the refund process as early as next week.

Status of the Refund Order and Cases

As we advised previously, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs, on March 5, Judge Eaton ordered CBP to issue refunds of some IEEPA duties, specifically by liquidating "unliquidated entries … subject to the IEEPA duties imposed by the Executive Orders considered by the Supreme Court in Learning Resources" and reliquidating "liquidated entries for which liquidation is not final," "without regard to the IEEPA duties." Judge Eaton then amended his order in Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States to cover all IEEPA duties, broadening the scope in two ways.

First, by a March 20 amendment, duties paid under all IEEPA tariffs are now covered. Readers will recall that the President imposed three sets of tariffs under IEEPA: the "trafficking" tariffs on certain Canadian, Mexican, and Chinese goods; the "reciprocal" tariffs on certain goods from nearly all countries; and the "country-specific" tariffs on certain Brazilian and Indian goods. Only the trafficking and reciprocal tariffs were explicitly considered by the Supreme Court, and therefore subject to the original Atmus order.

Second, a March 27 amendment extends coverage to IEEPA duties paid on any entry, regardless of liquidation date and status. Further recall that entries are divided into four categories for the purpose of seeking refund relief: (1) unliquidated entries, (2) entries liquidated 90 days or less prior, (3) entries liquidated between 91 and 180 days prior, and (4) entries liquidated more than 180 days prior. CBP has the authority to correct entries in the first two categories voluntarily through liquidation under 19 U.S.C. § 1504 or reliquidation under 19 U.S.C. § 1501, while reliquidating the "finally liquidated" entries in the second two categories requires importer action in the form of a protest under 19 U.S.C. § 1514 or where available a court case under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i), respectively. The original Atmus order did not cover finally liquidated entries.

Furthermore, in a bit of inside baseball, on April 7, the CIT transitioned to a new test IEEPA duty refund case, Euro-Notions Florida, Inc. v. United States,[1] after the plaintiff in Atmus voluntarily dismissed its own action. Judge Eaton, who is presiding over all refund cases, reissued his Atmus refund order in Euro-Notions, the only practical implication being that the Government now has until June 6 to appeal.

Launch of CBP's CAPE System

As we also noted, CBP wrote in Atmus on March 6 that, despite longstanding protestations from Administration officials and the President himself against issuing IEEPA duty refunds, CBP had been actively developing new functionality within its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system to process claims, which it expected to deploy within 45 days. Judge Eaton paused his order to allow CBP to proceed as periodic affidavits filed on March 12, March 19, and March 31 revealed more about the features and status of the new ACE capability, now called CAPE, to the court's satisfaction. On April 10, as updated April 13, CBP published its first formal guidance on CAPE, along with a website and notice. We summarize CBP's guidance as follows.

First, an importer of record, or its broker, may submit claims for refunds of IEEPA duties it—as opposed to its surety—paid through the Claim Portal component, which will validate that the submissions are in proper form and reflect existing eligible entries. Whereas Judge Eaton's order would provide for automatic refunds, CAPE will require importer action. The filer must identify existing entries on which at least one Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS) Chapter 99 IEEPA number was declared and upload a comma-separated values (.csv) file (a "declaration") listing a maximum of 9,999 of alphanumeric eligible entry codes. Importer, filer, and broker ACE accounts will be able to access the new CAPE tab, where a template declaration file will be available. A declaration cannot be amended once submitted, but filers may submit additional declarations, which can include entries that were submitted but not validated initially. Each accepted declaration will be assigned a claim tracking number. There is no deadline to file a CAPE claim. More details on submitting CAPE declarations are available in CBP's new quick reference guide.

Phase 1 of CAPE, launching on April 20, will validate only entries covered by Judge Eaton's original March 5 order, namely categories 1 (unliquidated entries) and 2 (entries liquidated 90 days or less prior), but the category 2 entries must have been liquidated 80 days or less prior to provide a cushion for CBP to complete reliquidation within the voluntary reliquidation period. Also not accepted in Phase 1 are reconciliation entries (type 09), entries on a drawback claim (type 47), USMCA duty deferral entries (type 08), temporary importation under bond (TIB) entries (type 23), entries subject to antidumping or countervailing duty orders (AD/CVD) pending liquidation pursuant to Department of Commerce instructions, and manually filed entries without an ACE liquidation status. CBP states that many of these excluded entries will be addressed in later phases of CAPE.

Second, the Mass Processing component will remove line items reflecting IEEPA duties from validated entries and recalculate the duties owed on the entry. The difference between duties paid and revised duties owed will be the refund amount, to which interest will be added in accordance with 19 C.F.R. § 24.36.

Third, the Review and Liquidation/Reliquidation component will schedule most processed entries for liquidation after 45 days, or for reliquidation the next business day. Unliquidated entries for which liquidation is suspended or extended that are under CBP review or that are for warehouse will be liquidated in the ordinary course, and CBP always retains the ability to extend liquidation to review an entry. For entries suspended pursuant to AD/CVD orders—roughly 166,000 totaling $2.9 billion in IEEPA duties—CBP is considering options to facilitate preliquidation refunds in future phases.

Fourth and finally, the Refund component will consolidate liquidated or reliquidated entries by refund recipient and issue the refunds electronically in one lump sum. The recipient will be the importer of record unless a "notify" or CBP Form 4811 party was designated on the original entry to receive refunds. Refunds of duties on entries scheduled for liquidation by CAPE can be expected to be made between 60 and 90 days following acceptance of a claim absent further CBP review, and the status of all refunds can be monitored through new ACE reports REV-603, REV-613, and REV-615. Any unpaid balance an importer owes to CBP will be deducted from the refund.

As of April 14, according to CBP's latest affidavit, CAPE is in the testing stage of development, with each component between 85% and 95% complete, and still expected to launch on April 20 as originally scheduled. The next status report on CAPE is due to be filed in Euro-Notions on April 28, over a week after the system is scheduled to launch, and the order remains on pause until then.

Steps to Prepare to File Refund Claims

In preparation for Monday's launch of CAPE, importers, in tandem with their customs brokers and counsel, should undertake the following steps. This is applicable to all parties, whether or not they have filed refund actions in the CIT.

• Ensure proper enrollment with CBP systems. Use of CAPE requires an ACE account and enrollment in electronic refunds, for which a company must have a U.S. address and bank account. CBP states that as of April 9, over 56,000 importers of record are registered to receive electronic refunds for all of their IEEPA entries, covering approximately 82% of entries totaling approximately $127 billion in IEEPA duties. Guidance on registering or updating information can be found on CBP's one-pager on the topic.
• Identify eligible entries. ES-003 and ES-701 reports available through ACE will contain the data needed to determine whether a company is the importer of record, whether it paid IEEPA duties, and which entries should be included in the CAPE declaration.
• Decide who will file the claims. Only the importer of record or the broker who filed the original entry (identified by the first three digits of the entry number) may file claims in CAPE. This is important to consider where an importer uses multiple brokers.
• Withdraw any open or suspended protests on otherwise eligible entries. CAPE will not validate entries subject to an undecided protest. Suspended protests can be withdrawn by contacting CBP directly.
• File post-summary corrections (PSCs) for issues other than IEEPA duty refunds. CBP has now stated that it will reject IEEPA duty refunds requested on unliquidated entries in favor of filing through CAPE, but recommends addressing other PSC-eligible issues first.

Remaining Unanswered Questions

While the CAPE system is a welcome development for importers, Phase 1 leaves many entries unaddressed, namely those that liquidated more than 80 days prior—i.e., before January 30, 2026—mostly in categories 3 and 4 above. As recently as April 1, Judge Eaton noted that "no resolution has been reached with respect to the reliquidation, by way of CAPE, of entries for which liquidation has become final," reminding importers to "be aware of the remedies available under 19 U.S.C. § 1514," which addresses protests. However, CBP has also stated that future phases of CAPE will address these "finally liquidated" entries, now included in Judge Eaton's amended order, as well as other currently ineligible entries, although no timeline has been provided.

Therefore, importers should carefully consider whether protests for currently ineligible entries are prudent, especially if the protest period is nearing expiration considering that those protests may need to be withdrawn if later phases of CAPE are implemented. And in light of CBP's right to appeal Judge Eaton's order in whole or in part, importers should also consider whether to file a protective case in the CIT for those entries where the protest period has lapsed or will lapse, noting the two-year statute of limitations on such actions.

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Russell Semmel is an attorney and Burt Braverman is a partner in the international trade, investment & national security group in the Washington, D.C. office of DWT. Our team is closely monitoring the IEEPA duty refund process to help filers obtain their refunds through CAPE Phase 1 and to protect their rights to future recovery. If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact the authors or another member of our international trade, investment & national security team. To stay informed, sign up for our alerts.