The Court of International Trade Certifies an IEEPA Refund Class: What the Freestyle World Ruling Means for Importers With Outstanding Refunds

Attorney advertising. This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice.

On October 8, 2026, the U.S. Court of International Trade certified a nationwide class of importers who paid tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Freestyle World, Inc. v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Slip Op. 26-123, Court No. 26-01088. The class covers:

“All importers of record who paid duties imposed by the Challenged Tariff Orders between February 1, 2025, and February 19, 2026, excluding any entity that has separately filed an action seeking to recover IEEPA duties payments.”

For the tens of thousands of importers who never filed a CAPE declaration and never filed their own lawsuit, this is the most significant development since the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs in February. It is also not a refund. The court certified the IEEPA refund class; it has not issued the injunction that would actually direct CBP to reliquidate class members’ entries. And, as explained below, some importers who paid IEEPA duties are not in the class at all. This article explains what the ruling does, what it does not do, and how it changes the calculus for companies still deciding whether to file their own case.

Background

On February 20, 2026, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, 607 U.S. 229 (2026), the Supreme Court held that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. Judge Eaton then entered orders directing CBP to liquidate or reliquidate entries without regard to IEEPA duties, and CBP built the CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries) module in ACE to process refunds at scale.

Roughly $136.6 billion in potential and certified refunds had been accepted into CAPE and about $126 billion in duties and interest had already been refunded — more than 75 percent of the estimated $166 billion collected. CBP has liquidated or reliquidated more than 21 million entries through the system.

Two gaps remained. First, CBP has maintained that it lacks authority to reliquidate finally liquidated entries — those liquidated more than 90 days ago — without a court order directing it to do so. CAPE Phase 3, deployed October 6, 2026, processes those entries only for importers who sued and obtained the court’s reliquidation order in their own cases. Second, some importers have simply never used CAPE at all, whether because they never heard of it or because the cost of assembling a declaration did not seem worth it. The court estimated that if CAPE stopped operating today, about $30 billion in unlawfully collected duties would remain in the Treasury.

Separately, the government has appealed the portion of Judge Eaton’s orders that directs reliquidation of all affected entries, arguing that universal relief is improper and that refunds of finally liquidated entries should run only to importers who sued. Those appeals remain pending at the Federal Circuit, and the universal order is stayed as to non-filers while they are decided. A certified class is the procedural answer to the government’s argument: relief entered for a class is relief for parties to the case, not a universal injunction.

What Happens Next — and What the Ruling Does Not Do Yet

It is easy to read headlines about this decision and conclude that refunds are on their way to every importer. That is premature, for several reasons.

No injunction has issued. The October 8 order certified the class and appointed counsel. The court held a closed conference with the parties on October 13, and as of this writing no public order has followed from it. The parties’ joint proposed scheduling order is due October 22, 2026, and must include the date by which the government will answer or otherwise respond to the class complaint. The class-wide reliquidation order is the step after that. The court made clear it expects that step to follow, but practitioners generally do not expect it before the government responds to the complaint.

The government may still seek review. The government opposed class treatment at every stage and is already appealing Judge Eaton’s universal refund orders. As of mid-October it had not publicly sought review of the certification order, but it would not be surprising if it did, or if it asked for a stay of any class-wide injunction once entered. A certification order can also be revisited by the trial court before final judgment.

The Federal Circuit appeals are still pending. The government’s appeals of the universal refund orders remain undecided, and oral argument has not yet been held. The class mechanism is designed to survive an adverse outcome there, but the two proceedings will interact, and the timing is uncertain.

The V.O.S. class motion is a different vehicle. A separate class certification motion in V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. United States, argued August 6, 2026, proposes a different class and seeks a different remedy — expanding access to CAPE for entries it does not currently accept. That motion remains pending. As discussed below, it may matter most to importers left out of the Freestyle class.

Mechanics are undefined. How CBP will process class members’ entries — whether through CAPE, through an automated mass reliquidation, or through some submission requirement like the IOR-number submission required of individual plaintiffs — has not been determined. The class complaint also asks for a court-supervised notice program, and how and when class members will be notified has not been decided.

Who Is In the Class — and Who Is Not

The class definition is short, but each piece of it matters.

You must be the importer of record. The class runs to importers of record who paid IEEPA duties. A U.S. buyer that bore the cost through a delivered-duty-paid price, a marketplace, or an end customer is not the importer of record and is not a class member. If your supplier was the IOR, the refund, if any, belongs to the supplier, and your remedy, if any, lies in your contract.

The duties must have been imposed by the “Challenged Tariff Orders” — which leaves out the Brazil and India tariffs. Because Freestyle filed before the Supreme Court ruled, the opinion explains that the class defines “Challenged Tariff Orders” as the orders the Federal Circuit held unlawful in V.O.S. Selections — the trafficking and reciprocal tariffs. The separate IEEPA tariffs later imposed on goods from Brazil and on goods from India were not part of that case. Importers whose claims rest on those tariffs fall outside the Freestyle class and need to protect their claims another way — either individually or, potentially, through the broader class proposed in V.O.S.

The duties must have been paid between February 1, 2025, and February 19, 2026. The court’s footnote explains that these are the dates the plaintiff believes bracket the unlawful collections before the suit was filed. But collection did not stop on February 19: practitioners report that IEEPA duties continued to be collected through February 23, 2026. Payments made after February 19 are, on the face of the definition, outside the class.

You are excluded if you have “separately filed an action seeking to recover IEEPA duties payments.” This is the most consequential line in the order. If you have already filed your own Section 1581(i) case, you are not a class member; you proceed under the reliquidation order entered in your own case, which is already being processed through CAPE Phase 3. And by the plain terms of the definition, an importer that files its own action now takes itself out of the class.

There is no opting in or out. Membership in a Rule 23(b)(2) class is mandatory. If you fit the definition, you are in, and you will be bound by the outcome — including, as the order notes, any settlement.

Should You Still File Your Own Case?

This is the question we have heard most since October 8, and the honest answer is that it depends on the size of your claim, the age of your entries, which tariffs you paid, and your tolerance for delay and uncertainty.

The case for relying on the class is straightforward. If the court enters a class-wide reliquidation injunction and it holds up, class members will receive the same relief as individual plaintiffs without the cost of litigation. For an importer with modest IEEPA payments under the reciprocal or trafficking tariffs, that may be the economically sensible path.

The case for filing individually has not disappeared, though, and in some situations it has gotten stronger:

• You may not be in the class. If your IEEPA payments include the Brazil or India tariffs, or duties paid after February 19, 2026, the Freestyle class does not cover those payments. An individual action, or a close watch on the V.O.S. motion, is the way to protect them.
• Speed and certainty. An individual plaintiff obtains the court’s standard reliquidation order in its own case, and CAPE Phase 3 is processing those claims now. One firm active in this litigation reports that the court has been entering individual orders within about four business days of filing. A class member, by contrast, is waiting on an injunction that has not issued, a schedule that has not been set, and possible appellate review.
• Timing of the money. Refunds accrue statutory interest, but money in hand is worth more than money in the pipeline. For large claims, months of delay can matter.
• The statute of limitations. A Section 1581(i) claim generally must be filed within two years of accrual under 28 U.S.C. § 2636(i). For the earliest IEEPA collections, that window closes in February 2027. Whether the pendency of a class action tolls that period for class members who later file individually — the doctrine associated with American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah has not been resolved for Section 1581(i) claims, and the certification order does not address it. Importers should not assume tolling will protect a claim if the class is later narrowed or decertified.

For importers with significant exposure, particularly on entries collected in early 2025, the conservative course is still to evaluate an individual filing on the merits rather than default to the class. That is a decision to make deliberately and soon — not by inaction — because the earliest deadlines are now less than four months away and filing your own case removes you from the class.

What You Should Do Now

1. Confirm you were the importer of record. Pull your entry summaries (CBP Form 7501) and ACE reports for every period in which you paid IEEPA duties, and confirm the IOR number on each entry is yours.

2. Sort your IEEPA payments by tariff program and date. Separate reciprocal and trafficking duties from any Brazil- or India-specific IEEPA duties, and flag any payments made after February 19, 2026. Those last two groups are outside the Freestyle class definition.

3. Sort your entries by liquidation status. Unliquidated and recently liquidated entries may still be recoverable through standard CAPE processing. Finally liquidated entries are the ones that depend on a court order — either your own or the class’s.

4. Determine whether you are in or out of the class. If you (or an affiliate filing under the same IOR) have already filed a Section 1581(i) action, you are excluded and should confirm your case is moving through CAPE Phase 3.

5. Make a deliberate decision about filing. Weigh the size of your claim, the age of your oldest entries, and whether any payments fall outside the class against the time and cost of an individual suit. Calendar the two-year deadline for your earliest collections.

6. Clean up your importer records now. Whatever path you take, refunds flow to the importer of record through ACE. Verify your CBP Form 5106 data is accurate and belongs to you, and confirm your ACE refund/ACH bank information is current. (We have written separately about CBP’s recent enforcement of Form 5106 accuracy — a voided or stale IOR record is an avoidable obstacle to getting paid.)

7. If you bought under DDP terms, look at your contracts. If your supplier was the importer of record, the refund goes to the supplier. Whether you have a contractual claim to any portion of it is a commercial question, and the time to raise it is before the money moves.

8. Watch the docket. The October 22 scheduling order will set the timetable for the government’s response and, eventually, the class-wide injunction. The CIT is posting class-action documents on a dedicated page of its website. Any government request for appellate review or a stay would change the timeline.

How We Can Help

Lieberman PLLC advises importers on IEEPA refund recovery, including CAPE submissions, Section 1581(i) filings at the Court of International Trade, and the strategic choice between individual litigation and reliance on the Freestyle World class. We can review your entry data, determine whether — and for which payments — you fall within the class definition, identify your earliest statute-of-limitations deadlines, and help you decide, and act, before those deadlines run. We also help importers correct Form 5106 and ACE records so that refunds, once ordered, actually reach them. Contact us to discuss your situation.

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This article reflects the Court of International Trade’s October 8, 2026 opinion and order in Freestyle World, Inc. v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the state of related proceedings as of October 19, 2026. The class-wide injunction has not yet issued, the government’s Federal Circuit appeals remain pending, and further review of the certification order is possible. The rules governing class membership, eligibility, and deadlines may change. Nothing here should be relied upon as legal advice or as a substitute for consultation with qualified counsel regarding your specific circumstances.