Update on IEEPA Tariff Refunds: CAPE Goes Live With Certain Limitations for Importers

By Brett W. Johnson, Derek Flint, T. Troy Galan, and Thomas Williams

In the days following the U.S. Court of International Trade’s (CIT) evolving orders directing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to liquidate and reliquidate entries without International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs, the refund landscape has materially changed. CBP’s automated refund tool went live on April 20, 2026, the universe of eligible entries has been narrowed by CBP, the Administration has signaled it will aggressively contest refunds, and a new lead case will drive the next round of court orders after the Atmus Filtration settlement.

I. CAPE Goes Live

CBP launched Phase 1 of its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) capability within the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) at 8:00 a.m. ET on April 20, 2026. Importers of record (IORs) and licensed customs brokers may now file CAPE Declarations through ACE. IORs are limited to 9,999 entries per CAPE declaration, and each must be uploaded in CSV format.

Once accepted, ACE strips the IEEPA Chapter 99 Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States provision and recalculates duties and tariffs without the IEEPA tariffs. Refunds are consolidated by IOR (or by the IOR’s designated Form 4811 party) and liquidation date. CBP has advised that valid refunds will generally be issued within 60–90 days of acceptance, subject to compliance review.

CAPE declarations may only be submitted by the IOR or licensed customs broker and cannot be amended once accepted. Any additional entries must be submitted in a new declaration.

II. Current Exclusions Under CAPE and Downstream Litigation Risk

CBP has confirmed that Phase 1 will process only certain unliquidated entries and entries within 80 days of liquidation (to comport with the 90-day voluntary reliquidation period),¹ capturing approximately 63% of entries that had IEEPA tariffs imposed.

According to CBP’s guidance, CAPE declarations will be rejected for entries that are:

Notably, finally-liquidated entries are not in Phase 1, even though the CIT previously ordered that “[a]ny liquidated entries for which liquidation is final shall be reliquidated without regard to the IEEPA duties.”²

CBP also flagged that pre-liquidation refunds for the roughly 166,000 AD/CVD-suspended entries (representing approximately $2.9 billion in IEEPA duties) would require manual processing under 19 U.S.C. § 1505(c) and mechanisms to process these have not yet been built. These entries will face a longer refund timeline because the manual refund processing needs to be repeated for each entry.

CBP has indicated that it will build out additional capacity to process additional entries not covered in Phase 1, but there is no definitive timeline on additional phases of CAPE or when refunds for these entries will be processed.

III. Looking Ahead

In cases where importers passed IEEPA costs through, downstream purchasers and consumers are already suing.³ Importers should expect a second wave of claims seeking IEEPA tariff payments that were passed along to customers. Importers should also not assume that voluntarily processed CAPE refunds will be insulated from later government efforts to recoup or offset, particularly given CBP’s confirmation that IEEPA refunds returned through CAPE remain “available to offset amounts owed with respect to other duties.”⁴

In addition, any declarations that are not based on substantiated entry data could become subject to a false claims or false certification investigation. For example, if an importer of record did not include the correct valuation of the product or engaged with the foreign manufacturer for pricing manipulation schemes or transshipment via a domestic subsidiary of the manufacturer at a lower valuation, then filing a declaration knowing of such an issue could lead to separate criminal and civil liabilities. The bottom-line is to ensure the accuracy of any declaration submitted via the CAPE process.

The CIT has now ordered CBP to file a report on Phase 1 progress of CAPE on April 28, 2026, with a closed settlement conference to follow that afternoon.⁵ Companies that paid IEEPA duties over the past year should (i) confirm ACH enrollment and Form 4811 designations in the ACE Portal, (ii) compile entry data in CSV-ready form for prompt CAPE submission, (iii) assess downstream pass-through exposure, and (iv) monitor the April 28 filing and subsequent orders for the scope of forthcoming CAPE phases.