How to Get Your IEEPA Tariff Refund Through CAPE: What Importers Need to Know Before April 20

Tariff Refund Solutions is an attorney-led program that recovers IEEPA tariff refunds for businesses on contingency.

On April 14, 2026, CBP filed a status report with the Court of International Trade, and a closed conference with Judge Richard Eaton followed at 3 p.m. That might sound like a bureaucratic milestone, but for the more than 330,000 companies affected by IEEPA tariffs, it is one of the most consequential moments in this entire process. Five days from now, CBP is scheduled to open a new filing portal called CAPE, and what happens between now and May 4 will determine whether it actually works the way people expect.

This article explains what CAPE is, who can use it, what happens if the government appeals the court order behind it, and why filing CAPE declarations is necessary but not sufficient to recover everything you are owed.

What Are IEEPA Tariffs and Why Are Refunds Happening

IEEPA stands for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Starting in 2025, the Trump administration used it to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from dozens of countries, including China, Canada, and Mexico. In February 2026, the Supreme Court struck those tariffs down in a case called Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, ruling that the President did not have the legal authority under IEEPA to impose them.

That decision meant every company that paid those tariffs had, in effect, paid money the government was never entitled to collect. The question that has occupied courts and customs agencies since then is how to give it back.

On March 4, 2026, Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade ordered CBP to refund all affected importers. CBP is the federal agency that collects tariffs at the border. Judge Eaton set a deadline of April 20 for CBP to launch the system that would process those refunds. That system is called CAPE, which stands for Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries.

What Is CAPE and How Does It Work

CAPE is a module inside ACE, which is CBP's online filing system that customs brokers and importers use to manage their imports. When CAPE opens on April 20, importers or their customs brokers will be able to upload a file listing the entry numbers for shipments they want refunded. CBP will then review those entries and, if everything checks out, issue refunds via ACH bank transfer within an estimated 45 to 90 days.

A few things about this process are worth understanding before you assume it is simple.

First, only the Importer of Record or a licensed customs broker acting on their behalf can file a CAPE Declaration. The Importer of Record is the company that was legally responsible for the import and paid duties to CBP. Consulting firms cannot file through protest filer accounts. This means you need to be coordinating with your customs broker now, not on April 20, because the portal will have heavy traffic on launch day and errors will cost you.

Second, the file you upload cannot be amended once it is accepted. If you make a mistake, you have to start over with a new filing. This is a significant operational risk that is not getting enough attention. The practical implication is that you should not upload all of your entries in a single batch if there is any uncertainty about whether some of them qualify. File the entries you are confident about first, and handle the uncertain ones separately.

Third, you need to have ACH refund banking set up in your ACE account before your refund can be issued. This is different from ACH payment banking. Many importers have payment accounts configured but not refund accounts, and CBP has already confirmed that over 7,700 refunds have failed because of this exact issue. As of mid-April, only about 26,000 of 330,000 affected importers had completed enrollment. If you have not verified this, do it before April 20.

Which Entries Are Eligible for CAPE Phase 1

CBP is rolling out CAPE in phases. Phase 1, launching April 20, covers the majority of affected entries but not all of them. An entry is eligible for Phase 1 if it was liquidated within the past 80 days or is still unliquidated, if it is within CBP's 90-day voluntary reliquidation window, or if it is in a status that CBP has categorized as suspended, extended, or under review.

Liquidation is the point at which CBP officially finalizes the duties owed on a shipment. It typically happens automatically around 314 days after the goods entered the country. An entry that has been finally liquidated more than 80 days ago is not eligible for Phase 1.

This is an important distinction. Every client we have analyzed has entries that fall outside Phase 1, sometimes representing a significant portion of their total tariff exposure. The dollar amounts left out of CAPE are not recoverable through the portal at all right now, because CBP has not announced a timeline for Phase 2. The only current path for finally liquidated entries is through protests filed with CBP or litigation filed with the Court of International Trade.

The Three Scenarios Playing Out Right Now

The most important thing to understand about CAPE is that a court ordered it, not Congress. CBP did not build this portal because it wanted to. It built it because Judge Eaton told it to. The government has until approximately May 4 to appeal that order, and what happens in the next three weeks determines whether any of this goes according to plan.

Scenario One: The Government Appeals and a Court Grants a Stay

A stay means the appeal pauses the underlying order while the case is decided. If CAPE is stayed, it freezes. Declarations already submitted sit without being processed. No refunds go out.

The reason this scenario is a real possibility, and not just a worst-case hypothetical, is that the government has a legitimate legal argument. In June 2025, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. CASA, Inc. that a federal judge can only provide relief to the specific parties who appeared in the lawsuit, not to everyone in the country who might be affected by the same legal question. Judge Eaton did exactly what that ruling says judges cannot do: he ordered CBP to refund all 330,000 affected importers, the vast majority of whom were never parties to the case. If a court finds that argument persuasive enough to pause the process while the appeal plays out, CAPE stops, and every importer who is not already a plaintiff in their own Court of International Trade lawsuit has no path to a refund.

Scenario Two: The Government Appeals but a Stay Is Denied

In this scenario, CAPE keeps running while the legal question is resolved, which could take months or longer. This is where the first-to-file logic matters most. Once CBP actually issues a refund, that money is in the importer's bank account, and the government faces a much higher legal and practical burden to recover it. Filing as soon as the portal opens on April 20 is the right move regardless of what you think the appeal odds are.

Scenario Three: No Appeal by May 4

If the government lets the deadline pass without appealing, Judge Eaton's order stands and CAPE proceeds as designed. This is the cleanest outcome, but it still does not mean everything is resolved. As explained above, finally liquidated entries are excluded from Phase 1, and there is no Phase 2 timeline. Protests and litigation are still necessary for that exposure.

In all three scenarios, filing protests and pursuing litigation in parallel with CAPE is the right strategy. If a stay is granted, those become your only options. If CAPE proceeds, they cover what CAPE cannot.

Why You Should Not Wait to See What Happens

The instinct to wait is understandable. CAPE is new, the legal situation is uncertain, and it is reasonable to want to see how it plays out before making moves. The problem with that instinct is that several of the most important deadlines do not pause while you wait.

Protest deadlines under customs law are calculated from the date of liquidation. If an entry has been liquidated and you do not file a protest within 180 days of that date, you lose the right to challenge it permanently. CAPE does not extend those clocks. The process of running your entry data, identifying which entries are outside the protest window, and coordinating with your broker and legal team takes time. Starting that process after the appeal question is resolved may mean starting it too late for some of your entries.

The ACH enrollment issue is also time-sensitive. CBP processes enrollments in the order they are received, and the backlog is significant. What used to be a one-day process is now taking up to six weeks. If you are not enrolled when your declaration is processed, CBP holds the refund indefinitely.

What to Do Before April 20

The most useful thing you can do right now is get a clear picture of your own exposure. That means knowing your total IEEPA tariff payments, which entries are unliquidated or within the 80-day window, which entries are finally liquidated and need a different approach, and whether your ACH refund banking is configured in ACE.

If you have a customs broker, contact them this week to confirm they are aware of the April 20 launch, understand the no-amendment rule, and are prepared to file on day one. If there is any question about whether they are equipped to handle CAPE filings, that is worth resolving now.

And regardless of what you expect CAPE to cover, get your protest strategy in place. The entries outside Phase 1 have their own deadlines, and those deadlines do not care about the appeal.