CBP opens portal for tariff refund requests after Supreme Court ruling

The first scramble is not over whether the money is owed. It is over who gets it back first, and how much of the $166 billion in tariff deposits can move through a system built for the largest customs refund operation the United States has ever tried to run. U.S. Customs and Border Protection will open its new Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries portal, known as CAPE, on Monday, April 20, 2026, but the initial phase will reach only certain unliquidated entries and certain entries within 80 days of liquidation.

That narrow gate matters because the Supreme Court’s ruling left the refund mechanics unresolved, forcing businesses, customs brokers and the government to sort out the process after the fact. CBP built CAPE inside its existing Automated Commercial Environment, and the agency says the portal is meant to consolidate valid refunds, including interest, rather than process claims entry by entry. Importers of record and authorized customs brokers will need ACE Portal accounts, bank information and CAPE Declarations in CSV format, with each declaration able to include as many as 9,999 entries.

The scale is enormous. CBP has said about 330,000 importers are waiting for refunds, and officials have put the automated first phase at roughly 82 percent of affected tariff entries, covering about $127 billion in deposits. Other estimates have put the total refund pool at about $130 billion, while broader estimates of possible claims have climbed as high as $175 billion. More than 56,000 importers had already signed up before launch, a sign of how quickly companies are trying to get into line ahead of the first phase.

Even so, the bottlenecks are obvious. CBP has said money could take 60 to 90 days to return after approval, and entries that do not fit the first phase will likely move into later phases or a manual administrative process. That means importers will need to keep documentation ready and prepare protests for liquidated entries, especially where antidumping orders or other complications are involved. Trade lawyers and customs specialists say the portal is likely the most efficient available route, but they also expect close scrutiny at the back end, where delays and denials could still slow recovery.

The biggest gains will go to the importers that paid the duties in the first place, especially companies with large, customs-heavy supply chains and entries still open under the phase-one rules. The tariffs at issue include Trump’s reciprocal duties and levies on China, Mexico and Canada tied to fentanyl enforcement, so the recovery will flow most quickly to businesses with the strongest paper trail and the least complicated entries.