CAPE Phase 3 Opens Oct. 6: IEEPA Refunds on Final Entries for CIT Plaintiffs

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

After two missed target dates, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has told the Court of International Trade that Phase 3 of its IEEPA refund system will go live on Monday, October 6, 2026. Phase 3 is the part of the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) module that importers with older entries have been waiting for: it is the first CAPE functionality that reaches finally liquidated entries — entries that went final before anyone knew the IEEPA tariffs would be struck down.

It is also the most restricted phase CBP has deployed. CAPE Phase 3 is not a general refund window. It is a processing channel for importers who are plaintiffs in their own IEEPA refund cases and whose entries the court has ordered CBP to reliquidate. If your company has finally liquidated entries and has not filed suit, October 6 changes nothing for you — and that is the most important thing to understand about this deployment.

This article explains what CBP has said about CAPE Phase 3, who can use it on day one, what the mechanics are expected to look like, and what importers on both sides of the litigation line should do this week.

Where Phase 3 Fits

CBP has built CAPE inside its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) in stages since the Supreme Court held in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (Feb. 20, 2026) that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs:

• Phase 1 (April 20, 2026) covers unliquidated entries and entries within 80 days of liquidation — the entries CBP can adjust on its own authority.
• Phase 2 (June 29, 2026) added certain reconciliation-flagged entries that are unliquidated or recently liquidated and do not yet have a filed reconciliation entry.
• Phase 3 (October 6, 2026) covers finally liquidated entries subject to court-ordered reliquidation.

Phase 3 was originally expected at the end of July. In August, CBP told the court it was delaying the phase to build additional validations — specifically, checks to ensure Phase 3 adjusts only IEEPA duties and accounts for entries where IEEPA duties were reported incorrectly on the original entry summary. That detail matters for preparation, and we return to it below.

Why Phase 3 Runs Through the Courthouse

The limit on who can use Phase 3 is not a technical choice. It follows from the government’s legal position.

Under 19 U.S.C. § 1501, CBP may reliquidate an entry on its own within 90 days of liquidation. After that, the entry is final, and the government’s consistent position in the IEEPA litigation has been that CBP has no authority to reopen a finally liquidated entry without a court order directing it to do so for a specific importer. The Court of International Trade’s April 2026 refund order purported to reach all importers, including non-litigants with finally liquidated entries; the government appealed that portion of the order to the Federal Circuit in June, arguing that relief to non-parties is an impermissible universal injunction under Trump v. CASA, Inc. (2025).

While that appeal proceeds, Judge Richard K. Eaton issued a series of orders beginning July 15, 2026 directing CBP to reliquidate, without regard to IEEPA duties, plaintiffs’ entries that have been liquidated for more than 80 days — and, in a July 21 order, entries that may become final while they are being processed through CAPE. Those orders are to be entered across the thousands of individual IEEPA cases before the court. They supply the case-specific authority the government says it needs, and Phase 3 is the system CBP built to act on them.

The practical result: CAPE Phase 3 will pay refunds on finally liquidated entries to importers who sued. It will not pay non-litigants. Whether non-litigants ever recover on those entries depends on the Federal Circuit appeal, which remains pending, or on the class-certification motion argued before the Court of International Trade in August, on which the court has not yet ruled.

Who Can File on October 6

According to the September 15, 2026 declaration CBP filed with the court, the day-one population is narrow and defined by date:

Plaintiffs who submitted a valid importer of record number to CBP by July 30, 2026 will be able to file Phase 3 CAPE declarations starting October 6. The court’s July orders required plaintiffs to provide their IOR numbers and related information to CBP, through counsel, before they could submit Phase 3 declarations.

Plaintiffs who submitted their IOR number after July 30 are not shut out, but they are not on the October 6 track. CBP has said it will provide separate instructions for that group. Until those instructions issue, those importers should not assume they can file on launch day.

Non-plaintiffs cannot use Phase 3, regardless of how clearly their entries paid IEEPA duties.

If you are a plaintiff and you are not certain which group you are in, find out now. Your counsel should be able to confirm whether and when your IOR numbers were transmitted to CBP, and whether the reliquidation order has been entered in your case.

How a CAPE Phase 3 Refund Is Expected to Move

CBP has not, as of this writing, issued a CSMS message setting out Phase 3 filing instructions, so the specifics may change. Based on CBP’s court filings and the Phase 1 process, the expected sequence is:

1. Declaration. The plaintiff (or its authorized broker) files a CAPE declaration in the ACE Portal identifying the finally liquidated entries. In Phase 1 this is a CSV file listing entry numbers only — up to 9,999 per declaration, with multiple declarations permitted. We expect Phase 3 to follow the same format, but that should be confirmed against CBP’s instructions when they issue.

2. Validation and acceptance. ACE validates the declaration and each listed entry. Phase 3 adds a layer Phase 1 did not need: CBP must confirm the entry belongs to an eligible plaintiff and is covered by a reliquidation order, and — per the August delay — that the adjustment removes only IEEPA duty and correctly handles entries where IEEPA duty was misreported. Entries that fail validation are rejected at the entry level and can be corrected and resubmitted on a new declaration.

3. Reliquidation. CBP reliquidates the accepted entries without the IEEPA Chapter 99 duties. Section 232, Section 301, and ordinary duties are not refunded through CAPE.

4. Payment. CBP has generally been issuing valid IEEPA refunds within roughly 60 to 90 days of accepting a declaration, with interest, by ACH to a refund account enrolled in ACE. This is not a formality: CBP reported that about 20,184 refunds totaling roughly $1.3 billion were on hold because the importer of record had not provided ACH refund information. A court order and an accepted declaration will not move money into an account that does not exist.

Getting Ready: Where Phase 3 Claims Are Likely to Stall

The reasons CBP gave for delaying Phase 3 point directly at where plaintiffs’ claims are most likely to get stuck.

Misreported IEEPA duties on the original entry. CBP built extra validation specifically for entries where IEEPA duties were reported incorrectly. In practice that means wrong or missing Chapter 99 numbers, IEEPA duty stacked against goods that were exempt, or IEEPA amounts that do not reconcile to the duty actually deposited. Before October 6, compare your entry-level data (the CBP Form 7501 lines and the ACE duty data) against what you believe was paid. An entry that does not reconcile is better identified by you now than rejected by ACE later.

Entries the order does not cover. The reliquidation orders reach the plaintiff’s entries that meet the order’s terms. Confirm that the entries you plan to list are entries on which your company — the plaintiff, under the IOR number you gave CBP — was the importer of record and made the IEEPA deposits. Entries filed under an affiliate’s IOR number, a predecessor entity’s number, or a number that was not transmitted to CBP are the obvious gaps.

Open protests. Some finally liquidated-looking entries have IEEPA-only protests on file. Do not withdraw an IEEPA-only protest to “clear the way” for Phase 3 until your reliquidation order is in hand and counsel has confirmed the entry is Phase 3–eligible. A withdrawn protest cannot be un-withdrawn, and CBP has separately been developing functionality for entries with open protests. Protests that raise other issues alongside IEEPA need their own analysis.

Drawback. CBP’s Phase 1 guidance instructs filers to submit CAPE declarations before filing drawback claims on the same entries. Assume the same sequencing applies in Phase 3 unless CBP says otherwise, and coordinate with whoever handles your drawback program.

Surety-paid duties. CBP has directed filers to exclude entries where a surety paid the IEEPA duties. If a surety was involved on any entry, flag it.

A Complication Worth Watching: Valid IOR Numbers

Phase 3 eligibility is keyed to a valid importer of record number. That word carries more weight than it did a month ago. As we discussed in our recent post on Form 5106 accuracy, CBP announced that beginning September 18, 2026 it will void IOR numbers where the Form 5106 data on file is incomplete or inaccurate — including where the address, email, or phone number belongs to a broker, forwarder, or other third party rather than the importer.

We have seen no CBP guidance on how a voided IOR number interacts with a pending Phase 3 refund — whether a plaintiff whose number was voided after July 30 can still file, whether refunds already in process would be held, or how reestablishment of the number would be treated. CBP may address this in its Phase 3 instructions. Until it does, the prudent course for any plaintiff is to confirm that its Form 5106 data is accurate and its IOR number is active before filing, and to watch the email address on the 5106, which is where CBP says voiding notices will go. This is especially important for foreign importers of record, who are both the most exposed to the 5106 enforcement push and a meaningful share of IEEPA refund plaintiffs.

If You Have Not Filed Suit

Phase 3 is the clearest evidence yet that, for finally liquidated entries, the refund runs to importers who go to court. It is possible that the Federal Circuit will affirm the Court of International Trade’s universal order, or that a class will be certified that sweeps in non-litigants. Neither has happened, and neither has a timetable.

Meanwhile, the statute of limitations for a claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i) — generally two years from accrual — keeps running entry by entry. IEEPA duties collected in early February 2025 carry filing deadlines of roughly early February 2027. As we explained in our earlier post on recovering refunds after the CAPE and protest deadlines, an importer that waits on the appeal and loses it may find that its oldest entries have aged out.

Filing now also has a practical benefit that Phase 3 makes concrete: a plaintiff with a reliquidation order and a transmitted IOR number has an operational path to a refund that exists today. A non-litigant has a legal argument that may or may not be vindicated later.

A Phase 3 Readiness Checklist

1. Confirm your plaintiff status and your track. Is your case filed, has the reliquidation order been entered, and did CBP receive your IOR number by July 30, 2026? If after July 30, wait for CBP’s separate instructions.

2. Confirm every IOR number you plan to file under is the one CBP has. Match IOR numbers, legal entity names, and case captions. Affiliates and predecessors are a common gap.

3. Confirm each IOR number is active and its Form 5106 data is accurate. Pull the current 5106 data of record from your broker and fix any third-party address, email, or phone information.

4. Build the entry list. Identify every finally liquidated entry on which you paid IEEPA duties, using liquidation dates, not entry dates. Keep a record of how the list was assembled. Check if their is a 4811 notify party on the entries as the refunds will arrive in their account.

5. Reconcile IEEPA duty at the entry level. Check Chapter 99 reporting and deposited amounts against your records. Flag entries where IEEPA duty was misreported, exempt, or does not reconcile.

6. Separate out problem entries. Entries with open protests, surety-paid duties, pending drawback, or reconciliation flags should be handled deliberately, not swept into the first declaration.

7. Do not withdraw IEEPA-only protests yet. Wait until the reliquidation order is in hand and Phase 3 eligibility is confirmed.

8. Enroll or verify your ACE refund ACH account. Confirm that the refund-specific bank account is enrolled for each IOR number. Missing ACH information is the single largest reported cause of held refunds.

9. Designate who files and who monitors. Decide whether the IOR or the broker will file declarations, and name someone to track CAPE claim numbers, entry-level rejections, and the REV-615 CAPE Refunds Trade Report in ACE.

10. Watch for CBP’s Phase 3 CSMS. Filing instructions had not been published as of this writing. Read them before submitting anything on October 6.

11. If you have not sued, calendar your earliest § 1581(i) deadline now. Phase 3 will not help you, and the two-year clock on your oldest entries is already well past halfway.

How We Can Help

Lieberman PLLC represents importers in IEEPA refund litigation at the Court of International Trade and in the CAPE process that follows. For plaintiffs, we can confirm your Phase 3 eligibility and IOR transmission status, review your entry data for the reporting problems CBP’s new validations are designed to catch, sequence protests, drawback, and CAPE filings, and help your team get declarations accepted and refunds paid. For importers that have not filed suit, we can review your entries, identify which are finally liquidated and what your limitations deadlines are, and file to preserve your claims so that Phase 3 — or whatever comes after it — is available to you. Contact us to discuss your situation.

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This article reflects CBP’s statements to the Court of International Trade and publicly available information as of September 29, 2026. CBP had not yet published Phase 3 filing instructions as of that date, and the Federal Circuit appeal and class-certification proceedings remain pending. The deployment date, eligibility rules, and filing mechanics described here may change. Nothing in this article is legal advice or a substitute for consultation with qualified counsel regarding your specific circumstances.