Paid the 2025 IEEPA tariffs? You may be owed a refund

Last reviewed June 2026. Customs rules on this are still evolving — the regulations and court decisions are changing fast. We keep this post updated as the picture develops; for your specific situation, ask us.

If your business imported goods in 2025 and paid the IEEPA tariffs, there’s a real chance you’re owed money back, and the window to act, while open, is contested and backlogged. Here’s the plain-English version of where things stand.

What happened

In early 2026 the Supreme Court ruled that the IEEPA tariffs, the sweeping duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, were not authorized by that law. In practical terms, a large category of duties that importers paid across 2025 was found to have been collected without a valid legal basis.

That set off a refund process. CBP opened a dedicated portal (CAPE) to handle claims, and refunds have been flowing, but not smoothly: the volume is enormous, parts of the process have been slowed by an appeal from the government over exactly who is entitled to what, and the paperwork trips people up. A judge overseeing the process has openly noted the risk that smaller importers, the ones without a broker helping them, end up losing out to larger companies that do.

(The specifics, dates, dollar figures, and which phases are open, change frequently. Confirm the current status before relying on any of it.)

Who may be eligible

Broadly, if you were the importer of record on entries in 2025 that were assessed IEEPA duties, those entries may be in scope. A few things worth knowing:

• It’s tied to your entries. The refund is claimed against the specific entries where the duty was paid, so the entry numbers are where the answer lives.
• Who can actually file the claim is limited. In general, the refund declaration is submitted by the importer of record, or by the licensed customs broker who filed the original entry, not by just anyone. That matters for how you go about it.
• Not every 2025 tariff is affected. Other tariff programs (for example, the Section 301 and Section 232 duties) sit on different legal footing and are a separate question. Don’t assume every duty you paid is refundable, and don’t assume none is.

What to do

1. Pull your 2025 entries. The 7501s tell you what you actually paid and under what basis.
2. Have someone who reads these for a living check eligibility. This is exactly the kind of thing a licensed broker can assess quickly from your entry data.
3. Don’t sit on it. Between backlogs, phased processing, and ongoing litigation, timing matters, and some deadlines are firm regardless of how the appeals play out.

The honest caveat

This is a genuinely good opportunity for many importers, and it’s also a moving target. Anyone who tells you a refund is guaranteed, or that it’s hopeless, is overstating it. The right move is to check your specific entries against the current state of the process, rather than guess.

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Borderless is a licensed U.S. customs broker, and we help importers assess and file CAPE refund claims on qualifying entries. If you paid IEEPA duties in 2025 and want to know whether there’s a claim worth making, your entry numbers are the place to start, send them our way and we’ll take a look. (Information here is general and current as of the date above; it isn’t legal advice.)

Sources & further reading

• Supreme Court of the United States — Opinions
• CBP — Trade
• Federal Register (official rules & notices)