IEEPA Tariff Refund Declaration Filing Begins April 20 in CAPE Portal

Importers Must File Claims Electronically Through the CAPE Portal in ACE

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced that they will launch the “CAPE Portal” to accept IEEPA tariff refund claims on April 20, 2026. CAPE = Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February in Learning Resources v Trump that the President did not have the authority to impose the duties.

Key Facts

• CAPE Portal declarations will only be accepted through the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) portal.
• Only the importer or the authorized customs broker who filed the entries can submit the CAPE declaration.
• CAPE declarations must be filed in a .CSV file with specific formatting requirements.
• Refunds are only paid electronically to a U.S. bank account designated in ACE.
• Refunds should be paid within 90 days.

As a law office with a licensed customs brokerage we file refund declarations for importers. We also ensure they are set up with CBP to receive the funds electronically.

What Steps Should You Do Now?

1. Prepare a list of your entries subject to IEEPA tariffs. Review and identify entries that were subject to IEEPA tariffs. We obtain these entries for importers. We identify those which are eligible for IEEPA claims now. Certain categories of entries will be refunded in the second phase of CAPE Portal implementation.
2. Calculate the refund amount due per entry including interest. Importers should calculate the amount of tariffs due to be refunded including interest based on the quarterly IRS interest rate. We calculate refund amounts due to importers.
3. Determine if you authorized another party to receive your refunds and revoke or amend authorization if desired. Over the past year many importers have given third parties authority to receive tariff refunds on their behalf via signing CBP Form 4811 –  “Special Address Notification.” The designation may be based on a per entry or blanket basis. We identify these parties for importers and revoke their authority as appropriate.
4. Ensure you are set up to receive refunds from CBP. Refunds are only being paid electronically through the account specified to CBP in the ACE portal. Ensure the correct account information is provided to CBP. We make certain importers are set up to receive the IEEPA duty refunds.
5. Don’t Wait Long to File: The CAPE Portal is only accepting declarations for unliquidated entries in the first phase of refund processing, or entries within 80 days of liquidation. Customs entries generally liquidate automatically 314 days after the date of entry. We identify the liquidation dates on entries for importers to prioritize IEEPA refund declarations.

CBP Resources on the CAPE Portal

• The website on IEEPA duty refunds is here.
• The quick reference guide to CAPE Portal filings here.
• The trade information notice on the CAPE Portal is here.

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Please contact Erik Lieberman at erl@liebermanpllc.com or 202-830-0300 if you have questions.