If 2025 was the year of reciprocal tariffs, 2026 is the year businesses could get that money back. That is, if the system put in place by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) goes according to plan.

In February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs were unconstitutional under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the justification he used to enact tariffs on goods imported from dozens of trade partners across the globe. The “trafficked tariffs” Mr. Trump imposed on countries including Mexico, Canada and China also fell under this category.

Roughly two months later, CBP launched the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) portal, which allows importers of record to submit refund claims for duties they paid on tariffs under IEEPA.

So far, roughly $20 billion has been returned to the importers of record who initially paid these duties. But some businesses are missing out on reclaiming the money they’re owed because they don’t have the right systems in place to move forward in the process.

Counselor spoke to experts across global trade and customs law to demystify the tariff refund process and ensure eligible promotional products companies take the right steps to get their money back. Here’s everything you need to know about tariff refunds.

Counselor has launched Promo Insiders Deep Dive, a new monthly podcast that takes an in-depth look at the trends, issues and stories driving the promotional products industry. In this premiere episode, Host Tara Lerman is joined by a trio of experts to demystify the hidden complexity of the tariff refund process for promo products companies. Listen and watch here.

Common Misconceptions

According to Aharon Margolin, a small business financing professional who founded the Tariff Recovery Group after the Supreme Court’s February ruling, one of the biggest myths he hears about the tariff refund process is that paybacks are automatic.

“We speak to a lot of businesses who assume they’re just going to get their money back,” he says. “That’s simply not the case. You have to do some work.”

Who that work falls on, however, depends on whether the importer of record is submitting the claims themselves, or if they’ve involved a third party known as a customs broker to help them out.

“With IEEPA tariffs in particular, the only people who are able to make the legal claim are the importers of record,” says Customs and Trade Attorney David Forgue, who is a partner at Barnes, Richardson & Colburn. “Customs brokers can file a claim or the importer of record can file a claim, but if the customs broker does that, it’s only on behalf of the importer of record, so the money is still going to the importer.”

For the promotional products industry, this means suppliers who source their goods directly overseas, along with a growing number of distributors who import direct, are candidates for IEEPA tariffs refunds.

“If you can put your claim together and it’s straightforward, that’s the quickest, best way to [get a refund].”David Forgue, Barnes, Richardson & Colburn

Understanding the Different Phases

CBP has opted to launch CAPE in different phases, and which phase an importer falls into is based on a concept known as liquidation. Forgue says that while liquidation is legally consequential, it’s almost invisible to most importers.

“If you are a regular importer who doesn’t have any complex issues, the goods hit the border, they’re released almost immediately, you pay the bill and you’re done with it,” he explains. “But there’s a lot happening in the background. Customs has 314 days to figure out if there’s anything that needs to be changed. As an importer, you have that time to fix the error as well.”

On the 314th day – technically the first Friday thereafter – customs closes the bill entirely. “And that’s liquidation,” says Forgue.

However, the CBP has 90 days from the date of liquidation to reverse its decision. The period after that is called final liquidation.

When CBP instituted CAPE Phase 1, the government agency agreed to refund “anything that’s not finally liquidated,” says Margolin. “Even though finally liquidated is 90 days, in this situation, it’s 80 days,” he explains.

CAPE Phase 1 is designed to process unliquidated entries, or those within 80 days of the liquidation period. Phase 2, which launched June 29, will process more complex entries, including those that have been finally liquidated.

Forgue says many of his clients seem to think the 80-day cycle is a static date. “It’s not,” he assures them. “It’s 80 days after the liquidation of [your entry]. So, if you’re delaying your CAPE claims, every day, some entries are getting closer to or past the 80 days. That’s not static. You don’t look at the day they introduced this, draw a line in the sand and say, ‘this is what’s eligible.’ On the day of filing, you have to be within the 80 days.”

Forgue encourages people to submit their refund claims within that period because, from his perspective, it’s the easiest and cheapest way for importers to get their money back. But there are other options for businesses that miss the deadline.

Kyle Peacock, the founder and principal at Peacock Tariff Consulting, notes that there will likely be a future CAPE phase that offers some reconciliation for those that didn’t get their Phase 1 claims submitted in time. “So, if you miss Phase 1, you can go back and submit it in Phase 4, but that won’t be released until late fourth quarter,” he explains.

That means businesses looking to receive their refunds sooner are up against the clock.

An Ongoing Legal Battle

However, there’s a lawsuit sitting at the Court of International Trade that could impact future phases. Customs already had the legal right to issue refunds for unliquidated entries (and liquidated entries that fall within the 80-day window) distributed as part of CAPE 1, Forgue explains.

But earlier this month, the Trump administration formally appealed an order from the Court of International Trade that directed CBP to refund the $166 billion in IEEPA tariff payments the government owes importers of record.

“Phase 2 and then Phase 3, more significantly, is really what the legal fight is about,” Forgue explains. “And it’s those entries that Customs doesn’t have a clear legal basis to reliquidate voluntarily.”

No matter what happens in the Court, importers with entries that fall under Phase 2 and 3 remain eligible for refunds – they just may need to take different steps to claim them.

“We can 100% go after those refunds. It’s just a matter of the means,” Forgue says.

Those who fall outside of CAPE Phase 1 can take legal action. But it’s not as serious as it sounds.

“For most entries, for most people, what’s probably the right answer is a court filing that will never actually be litigated,” explains Forgue. “It’s a court filing that’s basically a claim ticket.”

By taking that action, however, importers will have their name on a public docket suing the United States, which Forgue says some businesses aren’t comfortable with. However, Forgue reiterates to businesses that they should only take that step if they’ve run out of other options.

“I’m all for paying lawyers; I have a kid in college,” says the attorney, “But not unnecessarily. If you can put your claim together and it’s a very straightforward data analysis and it’s an easy filing, that’s the quickest, best way to accomplish this.”

Justin Angotti, an international trade attorney at Reed Smith, has also advised clients with entries that fall outside of CAPE Phase 1 to keep a close eye on this issue – and recommends two courses of action.

“One, if your entries aren’t eligible in CAPE Phase 1, you should be protesting them within 180 days of liquidation to preserve your legal right,” he says. “And then two, consider whether you should join the other importers who have already filed suit in the Court of International Trade. The deadline for a lot of folks is realistically spring of 2027, February probably at the earliest. So, it’s not a pressing need necessarily, but if you’re covering all your bases, those are the two things you should be tracking.”

Bumps in the Road

Beyond legal challenges, there are also some administrative hurdles importers must jump through when it comes to submitting their refund claims. Before the importer or broker can file a claim, they must locate all their customs-related information.

“Customs has an entire electronic system that’s normally used by people’s brokers to file their customs-related information,” explains Angotti. “And to process tariff refund requests, typically the company has to set up its own account in the customs system.”

He adds that he’s witnessed a growing number of businesses who want to file their refunds, but when they go to do so, they realize they don’t have an account in the system. As a result, their information hasn’t been uploaded – and they can’t yet move forward in the claims submission process.

“The CAPE portal is very efficient and easy to use for the importer. Unfortunately, that’s if you have all your data up-to-date and at hand.” Kyle Peacock, Peacock Tariff Consulting

Peacock has seen something similar.

“I wouldn’t say that CBP is overly efficient in a lot of things [it does],” he tells Counselor. “But the CAPE portal that they have released is very efficient and easy to use for the importer. Unfortunately, that’s if you have all your data up-to-date and at hand.”

What Peacock is seeing, however, is that many businesses don’t have the level of detail required to get their refunds back in a timely manner. “That’s the biggest constraint we’ve noticed,” he notes.

CBP is only processing refunds electronically, adds Angotti, and importers must have an account to access this information.

“That whole process is taking much longer than it typically would if importers need support from customs,” he explains. “So, what would normally maybe take a week or two is now on a backlog where people who requested account support to set up a new account in February are just now coming up in the Customs queue.”

After that, Angotti says the submission process is relatively straightforward.

“There’s a little bit of work [up front] to figure out [which] entries were impacted, but then the actual refund process itself is simply uploading a CSV file that lists those entry numbers, hitting submit and waiting,” he remarks.

He adds that those filing a claim should watch out for administrative errors that could ultimately delay their refund. For example, some importers are incorrectly reporting liquidation dates.

“That results in some entries sort of unexpectedly being rejected as not being within that sort of 80-day window,” he says.

Other times, these administrative headwinds have less to do with human error and more to do with the limitations of the tech behind the CAPE portal. “The system doesn’t know how to process certain numbers or sequences,” explains Angotti. “If certain figures weren’t put in the right order on the front end, when [CAPE] goes to look for them on the back end, it doesn’t find them and it produces an error.”

CBP has released a document that spells out some of these common error codes, but even still, Peacock recommends importers do their due diligence when it comes to filing their claims. (For the latest updates on the CAPE portal, visit CBP’s website.)

“CBP is becoming increasingly strict,” says Peacock. “They’re making a significant amount of money on missed declarations, misclassifications, all of it. So just make sure that your data is correct.”