US customs agency expects tariff refund tem to be ready in 45 days
Source
American Shipper
Post Date
03/11/2026
?Summary ? ?CBP collected $166 billion in illegal tariffs from 330,000 importers ?CBP is preparing a refund tem that will not require importers to sue ?Judge no longer demands "immediate compliance" with earlier order
March 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. customs agency is readying a tem within 45 days to process refunds on U.S. President Donald Trumps tariffs that were struck down as illegal, a customs official said in a court filing on Friday.
The declaration by Customs and Border Protection official Brandon Lord came just before government lawyers met with a federal trade judge to try to hammer out a broad settlement process, as Reuters reported exclusively on Friday, for returning $166 billion in tariff payments to around 330,000 importers.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Courtstruck down as unconstitutional the tariffs that were a central part of Trumps economic policy.
The court did not say how the collected tariffs should be refunded, leaving small importers worried the process would be expensive and time-consuming.
"This new process will require minimal submission from importers," Lord said in his declaration, filed with the U.S. Court of International Trade as government lawyers began meeting with Judge Rid Eaton from the court.
Eaton called the meeting to discuss how the government will carry out his sweeping order, s new tab issuedon Wednesday directing the CBP to refunding tariffs to potentially hundreds of thousands of importers using the agencys existing internal process.
On Friday, after concluding the meeting with the government lawyers, he said in a court filing he was aming that order to no longer require "immediate compliance," and appeared to be giving CBP time to carry out the new tem. Eaton said he changed his order after considering the "declaration of Brandon Lord."
Eaton said in his Wednesday order that he had been appointed by the trade court to hear the roughly 2,000 lawsuits filed by importers including FedEx and LOreal seeking refunds. Trade lawyers said those lawsuits were the tip of the iceberg, and thousands more were prepared to sue if the government failed to develop a tem for automatic refunds.
Affiliates of Ninto and CVS became the latest large companies to sue for refunds on Friday. SINGLE PAYMENT FOR IMPORTERS Lord said in the court filing that the customs agency expected importers to file a declaration with the CBPs computer tem known as ACE detailing tariff payments, which would then be validated before refunds are processed with interest. The importers would not have to sue.
Each importer would receive a single payment from the Treasury Department, regardless of how many separate entries of goods the importer had made.
Lord did not estimate how long it would take to process the refunds, but said the CBP would not be able to comply with Eatons order from Wednesday. Eaton contemplated refunds would be automatically returned to importers through the existing tem without documentation or input from the importer.
"Its existing administrative procedures and technology are not well-suited to a task of this scale and will require manual work that will prevent personnel from fully carrying out the agency? trade enforcement mission," Lord said in explaining why the agency could not use its existing tem.
He said importers had paid an estimated $166 billion in tariffs on more than 53 million shipments. Eatons order would have required the agency to manually review paperwork on every shipment, a process Lord said would require more than 4 million hours of labor. PRACTICAL PROPOSAL The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest U.S. business lobbying group, applauded the CBPs 45-day plan as "a constructive and practical proposal" to administer refunds efficiently.
"Most importantly, this proposal would spare the hundreds of thousands of small businesses who are owed refunds from having to litigate to obtain them," the Chambers chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, said in a statement that also encouraged further refinements.
However, Lords declaration also indicated that few importers had signed up for the CBPs electronic tem for refunds. Out of more than 330,000 importers who paid the illegal duties, only 21,423 signed up for the electronic refund tem that went into place on February 6, according to Lord.
Eaton is overseeing a refund lawsuit by Atmus Filtration Inc, which the judge is using as a vehicle to order CBP to issue the refunds for all importers.
CBP Not Yet Ready to Process IEEPA Tariff Refunds, But Preparations Underway in ACE
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) March 6, told the Court of International Trade (CIT) in a filing that it was not prepared to process the court-ordered IEEPA tariff refunds, but could have ACE programmed to do so in the next 45 days.
?ith respect to any and all unliquidated entries that were entered subject to the IEEPA duties, U.S. Customs and Border Protection [must] liquidate those entries without regard to the IEEPA duties,?and that ?ny liquidated entries for which liquidation is not final shall be reliquidated without regard to IEEPA duties,?the agency filing signed by Brandon Lord, Executive Director for the CBP Office of Trade.
?BP is confident that it can develop and implement new ACE functionality that will streamline and consolidate refunds and interest payments on an importer basis, rather than issuing 53,173,939 separate entry-specific refunds with multiple payments going to the same importer,?Lord added.
This new functionality would, according to CBP, help save time in processing refunds. As the declaration states, ?hough operational, legal, and technical considerations may require ations or modifications, CBP anticipates that the process will involve the following steps:
?The importer files a declaration in 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 re-calculates 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. ?The Department of the Treasury issues IEEPA refunds electronically.?
The declaration from CBP implies that this process might take months or more to complete the refunds to all affected importers.
The CIT on March 4 issued an order instructing CBP to liquidate unliquidated import entries without regard to IEEPA duties and to reliquidate any entries that have been liquidated but are not yet final.
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