How to Fill Out and Submit the Beef Settlement Claim Form

The beef settlement claim form is available now at overchargedforbeef.com, and you have until June 30, 2026 to file for a share of the $87.5 million consumer settlement with Tyson Foods and Cargill. Most individual filers can finish it in under ten minutes, and no receipts or proof of purchase are required to submit.¹

Who Can File

Three things decide whether you qualify: when you bought the beef, what kind it was, and where you bought it.

The Class Period

Your purchases must have occurred between August 1, 2014 and December 31, 2019. Anything outside that window doesn’t count.¹

Which Beef Counts

Eligible products are fresh or frozen beef from four primal cuts: chuck, loin, rib, or round. That covers most steaks, roasts, and stew meat from the refrigerated or frozen meat aisle.²

The exclusion list surprises most people. These do not qualify:

Ground beef of any kind, including hamburger, ground chuck, and ground round.
USDA Prime, organic, 100% grass-fed, Wagyu, and American-Style Kobe Beef.
No Antibiotics Ever, antibiotic-free, kosher, halal, and certified humane products.
Anything marinated, seasoned, flavored, breaded, or cooked.
Any product containing ingredients other than beef, salt, or water.

Ground beef being excluded catches a lot of households off guard, since it’s the most common beef purchase in the country. The settlement is drawn narrowly around whole primal cuts.²

Covered States

You must have made the purchases in one of the following jurisdictions: Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, or Wisconsin.³ Buy beef in a state that isn’t on that list, and you’re not part of this class.

Filling Out the Form

The form has four short sections. Receipts are not required, though the administrator can ask for supporting documentation later. No Social Security or taxpayer ID number is needed.³

Claimant Information

Enter your full name (or business name), mailing address, phone number, and email. If someone else is filing for you, they list their own contact information and attach documentation showing their authority, such as a power of attorney.⁴

Purchase Information

Five questions. The first two ask you to confirm that you bought eligible beef for personal use and did so in a qualifying state. The third asks whether you’re an individual or a business.

The fourth is the core of the form. It asks whether you bought eligible beef roughly monthly across the whole class period (August 2014 through December 2019). If yes, you estimate pounds per month. If your buying was less consistent, you estimate how many months you bought beef and the pounds during those active months. The fifth question asks your typical monthly spend on eligible beef.³

These are estimates, not exact figures. Think through your grocery habits during those years. A household buying a couple of steaks or a roast most weeks might land around 8 to 12 pounds per month. There’s no penalty for reasonable estimation, but inflated numbers can trigger an audit or denial.

Payment Election

Pick how you want to be paid. The options are digital transfer through Amazon, Starbucks, PayPal, Venmo, or Instacart, or a mailed check. Digital methods require the email or phone number tied to that account, so verify that detail before submitting.³

Certification and Signature

Sign and date. Your signature certifies under penalty of perjury that the information is true and accurate to the best of your knowledge. Online submissions use an electronic signature.

How to Submit

You can file online or by mail. Online is faster and gives you an instant confirmation code.

To file online, go to overchargedforbeef.com and click “Start Your Claim.” Have your information ready before you begin, because the system does not save partial submissions. A confirmation email follows.⁴

To file by mail, download and print the claim form from the settlement website, fill it out and sign it, and send it to:

Consumer Indirect Beef Litigation
Settlement Administrator
P.O. Box 3605
Portland, OR 97208-3605

The envelope must be postmarked no later than June 30, 2026.⁴

If you’re mailing supporting documents, send clear copies rather than originals. Anything mailed to the administrator will not be returned. Files uploaded online must be under 20 MB each and in a common format like PDF, JPEG, PNG, or Word.

Key Dates

March 30, 2026: Deadline to opt out of the settlement or file an objection.¹
May 26, 2026, 3:00 p.m. CDT: Fairness hearing before Judge John R. Tunheim at the U.S. District of Minnesota, where the court decides on final approval.
June 30, 2026: Last day to file online or postmark a mailed form.⁴

Do nothing by the claim deadline and you forfeit any payment but remain bound by the settlement’s terms. Opting out by March 30 preserves your right to sue separately, though the math rarely favors that for individual consumers.

What You Might Actually Receive

The consumer fund is $87.5 million, made up of $55 million from Tyson and $32.5 million from Cargill, less court-approved attorneys’ fees and administrative costs.¹ What remains is divided pro rata among approved claimants in proportion to the eligible beef each person bought during the class period.⁵

Individual amounts depend on how many valid claims come in. With millions of potential claimants across 28 jurisdictions, typical household payouts will likely be modest. Neither the court nor the administrator has published a projected per-person figure. Claimants who bought more eligible beef over more of the class period will get proportionally more. Tyson and Cargill have not admitted wrongdoing.

After You File

The administrator reviews your form for completeness and consistency and may contact you for additional information or documentation supporting your estimates. Notifications come by email or mail depending on the contact information you provided.

No payments go out until after the fairness hearing and final court approval. If any party appeals, distribution is delayed further. Once the legal steps clear, payment arrives through whichever method you selected on the form.

Taxes on the Payment

Antitrust price-fixing payments are generally treated as taxable income under Internal Revenue Code Section 61. They compensate for overpaying for a product, not for physical injury, so the Section 104 exclusion does not apply.

Beginning in 2026, settlement administrators must issue a Form 1099-MISC to any claimant who receives $2,000 or more in settlement payments during the calendar year, a threshold raised from $600 by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed in July 2025.⁶ Most individual consumer payouts here are unlikely to reach that number, but you should still report the income on your return whether or not a 1099 arrives. State tax treatment varies.

If You Bought Beef for a Business

The consumer form doesn’t cover restaurants, caterers, schools, hospitals, or other entities that bought raw beef for commercial food preparation. Those buyers fall under a separate $47 million settlement with Tyson (with a prior JBS settlement for an undisclosed amount), and its claim form has not been released yet.⁷ The commercial settlement website will notify class members when filing opens; businesses should start pulling purchase records now, because commercial claims will almost certainly need documentation the consumer form does not.

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