Overview
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in response to an order issued by the Court of International Trade (CIT), proposed on March 6 an administrative process to refund tariffs imposed by President Trump.
As we previously reported, on February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) was unconstitutional. As a result of that decision, the case was kicked back to the CIT to address the refund issue. On March 4, 2026, the CIT ordered CBP to refund IEEPA tariffs stating that “[a]ll importers of record whose entries were subject to IEEPA duties are entitled to the benefit,” although the implementation phase of the order has been suspended.
On March 6, CBP filed a declaration with the CIT providing a process to refund the IEEPA tariffs in compliance with CIT’s order. The process, which should be available within 45 days, is provided below:
- The importer files a declaration in CPB’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) that includes a list of entries on which IEEPA duties were paid.
- ACE runs a series of validations on each entry within the declaration and automatically recalculates the duty owed without the IEEPA tariffs (with applicable interest).
- CBP verifies the declaration and processes refunds as soon as practicable.
- ACE automatically finalizes (liquidates or reliquidates) the entries.
- ACE automatically aggregates the refunds with interest by importer and liquidation date.
- CBP certifies the refunds.
Furthermore, all CBP refunds shall be issued electronically through Automated Clearing House (ACH) and refund requests shall be rejected if no ACH is setup.
Next Steps for Importers
Undoubtedly, the above refund process is overly complex and intended to complicate the refund process. In preparation for the refund process, we continue to recommend that importers file suit with the CIT as we believe such suit is the best avenue for obtaining refunds quickly. In addition, as refunds shall now be issued electronically through ACH, we further recommend that importers immediately create an ACE account through which it shall receive ACH refunds from CBP. Additionally, importers should further prepare an ACE report covering all entries with IEEPA duties.
