CBP tariff refund portal launches with early filing problems reported

Businesses that expected quick tariff relief ran into a rough first day as Customs and Border Protection opened its new refund portal and some importers reported they could not file claims or even get into the system. The launch was meant to start returning money tied to tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in February, but the first phase showed how far execution lagged behind the policy promise.

CBP launched the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, or CAPE, at 8 a.m. EDT on April 20. The first phase was limited to certain unliquidated entries and certain entries within 80 days of liquidation, with later phases expected to handle more complex cases. The agency said approved refunds should be paid electronically in about 60 to 90 days after acceptance, and that only importers of record or their authorized customs brokers could file. CAPE filings go through ACE Portal accounts as CSV uploads, with up to 9,999 entries in each declaration.

The stakes are large. CBP has said the government may owe importers as much as about $166 billion. Court filings said 56,497 importers had already completed the steps needed for electronic refunds as of April 9, representing about $127 billion, out of more than 330,000 importers that paid the tariffs on 53 million shipments. For companies that absorbed the duties instead of passing them on, the timing of those refunds could matter as much as the final amount.

The portal’s debut came after a fast-moving legal and administrative sequence. On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the tariffs, invalidating both the drug-trafficking tariffs and the reciprocal tariffs. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate on March 2, the Court of International Trade ordered CBP on March 4 to liquidate unliquidated entries without the duties and reliquidate certain liquidated entries, and on March 6 the court paused immediate compliance so CBP could build an automated refund tool. CBP later said on April 13 that Phase 1 would deploy on April 20.

Some early users said the system was not ready for the rush. Rick Woldenberg, chief executive of Learning Resources in Vernon Hills, Illinois, said the portal returned a message that the system was experiencing high volume and told him to try again later. He said it seemed overwhelmed. Beth Benike, co-founder of Busy Baby in Boca Raton, Florida, said she spent more than four hours on hold with CBP over the weekend trying to fix an account issue and saw an error reading “Duplicate tax ID.” Shawn Phetteplace of the Main Street Alliance said some member businesses had trouble submitting claims or could not file at all, calling the launch “deeply disappointing.” CBP said it was looking into reports of problems.