More than two months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a sweeping set of Trump-era tariffs, the current Trump administration has kicked off what historians and trade analysts describe as the largest tariff repayment initiative in U.S. history. Eligible importing companies can now submit claims online to recover the billions in duties they paid, plus accumulated interest, under the administration’s controversial “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The legal path for refunds cleared in March, when the U.S. Court of International Trade ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to return the full $160 billion (around £121 billion) collected from importers under the tariffs, which were imposed using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The court’s ruling puts roughly 330,000 registered importers in line to potentially claw back at least a portion of the funds they paid.
In a March ruling, Judge Richard Eaton emphasized that “All importers of record whose entries were subject to IEEPA duties are entitled to the benefit” from the Supreme Court’s February decision. When the official online claims portal, branded the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (Cape), went live earlier this month, more than 56,000 importers had already completed their applications within the first week, submitting claims totaling $127 billion, according to early CBP data.
CBP officials designed the Cape platform to streamline the refund process, allowing importers to submit a single bulk claim for all eligible duties rather than filing separate requests for each individual imported shipment. Approved claimants can expect to receive their full refund plus applicable interest within 60 to 90 days of approval, a CBP spokesperson confirmed.
But the structure of the program has sparked widespread frustration, as ordinary consumers who bore the indirect cost of the tariffs through higher retail prices are excluded from direct compensation. The tariffs pushed up prices on a huge range of imported goods, from raw materials used by small businesses to finished consumer products, but only registered importing companies are eligible to file claims. While consumers could theoretically see indirect benefits if companies choose to pass recovered funds back to shoppers through lower prices, few firms have announced plans to do so, leaving millions of affected Americans with no path to relief.
In response to the exclusion, hundreds of consumers have launched class-action lawsuits against major retailers and brands, arguing that any refunds businesses receive should be passed through to the customers that ultimately paid the tariff costs. Federal suits have already been filed against EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban, global delivery firm FedEx, and wholesale retail giant Costco in multiple U.S. district courts. Costco is an outlier among major companies: chief executive Ron Vachris has confirmed the retailer plans to pass any tariff refunds back to consumers “through lower prices and better values.”
For small business owners who absorbed higher supply costs, the exclusion is a particularly bitter blow. Sue Johnson, a small-batch lamp designer based in the Midwest, told the BBC that her key material supplier doubled prices immediately after the tariffs went into effect, cutting her profit margins dramatically. “Maybe [the importers] will get repaid, but I have no hope they’re going to refund me,” Johnson said, adding that she expects no relief from the current refund program.
The issue of consumer compensation is further complicated by the uneven impact of tariffs on business pricing. Many importers only partially passed tariff costs through to consumers to stay competitive, meaning they absorbed a portion of the cost themselves. Tariffs also triggered secondary, hard-to-quantify costs for businesses, from higher debt loads taken on to cover upfront duty payments to lost sales from reduced consumer demand at higher price points.
Top Trump administration officials have openly acknowledged that consumers are not expected to see direct benefits from the program. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer encouraged successful claimants last month to allocate any unexpected “windfall” refunds to worker bonuses rather than passing the money to consumers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed that framing in February, saying “I got a feeling the American people won’t see it.”