Donald Trump‘s administration opened a federal refund portal Monday, allowing American businesses to start claiming back billions of dollars in import taxes after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs as unconstitutional. It could go down as one of the largest repayments to importers in US history.
According to Fox Business, the new system called CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries) went live at 8 p.m. ET on April 20. Run by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the portal lets importers and their customs brokers submit refund claims through CBP’s existing Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system.
The Supreme Court ruled back in February that Trump lacked the legal authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), finding that Congress, not the president, holds that power. A judge at the US Court of International Trade later ordered the government to remove the tariffs from affected entries and return all excess duties collected, plus interest.
The numbers behind the refund
The scale of what the government owes is staggering. Court filings show more than 330,000 importers paid duties across more than 53 million shipments, with the total bill landing at roughly $166 billion. CBP has described the volume of expected claims as “unprecedented,” noting in court documents that its existing systems were not built to handle this kind of load.
NPR reported that a Customs official told a judge last week that the vast majority of eligible importers had already signed up for electronic payments, and that group alone is owed about $127 billion.
Some business owners wasted no time. Alfred Mai, whose San Francisco firm ASM Games manufactures card games in China, logged on early and submitted claims for 17 shipments in about five minutes. His total refund request came out to more than $162,000. “I guess I’ll hold my breath until I actually see the money deposited into my bank account,” Mai told NPR.
What happens next, and when
Once a refund claim clears validation, CBP says the money will generally be issued within 60 to 90 days. More complicated cases could take longer.
Monday’s launch is just the first phase. Not every tariff payment qualifies right away. The initial rollout is focused on entries that are still technically under federal review. A broader second phase, covering older finalized payments, is planned for later, as part of what the government is calling “more complex refund scenarios.”
Advocates for small businesses are cautiously optimistic. “Small businesses organized, spoke out, and won a major victory,” said the Main Street Alliance in a statement. “Now, the federal government must follow through with a refund process that truly works for Main Street.”
Whether everyday consumers will see any of this money is a separate and murkier question. Legal and economics experts say most shoppers probably will not get direct refunds, since tariff costs were passed along through supply chains and baked into higher product prices over time.
As the refund process kicks off, Trump has not stood still on trade. After the Supreme Court’s February ruling, he teased new actions on trade policy and signed an executive order imposing a new 10% “global tariff” under a separate provision of the Trade Act of 1974 as his administration searches for a legal path to revive its import tax agenda.
The tariff fight is playing out against a broader backdrop of tension between Trump’s executive ambitions and the limits of presidential power. Trump has clashed with political opponents on multiple economic fronts, including calling out New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani over a proposed tax plan he claims would hurt the city’s economy.
For now, hundreds of thousands of importers are watching the clock, waiting on refund checks that could reshape their bottom lines after more than a year of absorbing the cost of tariffs courts have now ruled were never legal to begin with.
