Tariff Lawsuit: Supreme Court Ruling, Refunds, and CAPE Filing

The Supreme Court ruled on February 20, 2026 that President Trump’s IEEPA tariffs were unlawful, and importers who paid those duties can now seek refunds through a Customs and Border Protection system that has already approved billions of dollars in claims. If you paid IEEPA duties on imports between February 2025 and February 2026, a tariff lawsuit refund is available through CBP’s Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries portal, though the government is appealing how far that refund eligibility should reach. Roughly $166 billion in duties were collected under the struck-down orders, and by late May 2026, CBP had accepted applications for about $85 billion in refunds.¹

What the Supreme Court Actually Decided

In a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. The power to tax imports belongs to Congress under Article I, Section 8, and the government conceded that the president has no inherent peacetime authority to impose duties.²

IEEPA lets the president “regulate… importation” during a declared emergency, but the Court found that language does not include the power to tax. Where Congress has actually delegated tariff authority in other statutes, it has done so “in explicit terms and subject to strict limits,” with caps on duration and amount that IEEPA lacks entirely. The Court also noted that no president in IEEPA’s 50-year history had ever used it to impose tariffs, calling that a “telling indication” that the statute did not reach this far.²

The tariffs at issue had started in February 2025 with a 25% duty on Canadian and Mexican imports and a 10% duty on Chinese imports, expanded in April 2025 to a baseline 10% “reciprocal tariff” on imports from all trading partners with higher country-specific rates. Duties on most Chinese goods eventually reached 145%.² All IEEPA tariffs were officially terminated at midnight on February 24, 2026, four days after the ruling.³

Who Qualifies for a Refund

The most important question for importers was whether refunds would be limited to companies that had filed their own lawsuits, or whether every business that paid the duties could recover. On March 4, 2026, Judge Richard K. Eaton of the Court of International Trade, designated as the sole judge for all IEEPA refund cases, answered in favor of universal eligibility.

In Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States, Judge Eaton ordered CBP to liquidate all unliquidated entries without applying IEEPA duties, and to reliquidate entries where liquidation was not yet final, regardless of whether the importer had filed suit.⁴ Requiring each of the roughly 330,000 affected importers to sue individually would, he wrote, “thwart the efficient administration of justice.” He grounded the universal reach in two features specific to the CIT: the Customs Courts Act of 1980 gives the court exclusive, nationwide jurisdiction over tariff claims, and the Constitution’s Uniformity Clause requires duties to be applied uniformly across the country.⁵

Under that order, if you paid IEEPA duties, you can apply for a refund whether or not you were part of the original litigation. That eligibility is what the government is now trying to narrow on appeal, and the fight matters most for entries that have already been “finally liquidated” (see below).

How to File Through the CAPE System

CBP launched the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system, called CAPE, on April 20, 2026. It runs through the Automated Commercial Environment portal. Importers or their authorized brokers submit a “CAPE Declaration” listing affected entries, CBP recalculates the duties owed without IEEPA amounts, and refunds are issued electronically. CBP has said refunds should generally process within 60 to 90 days after a complete declaration is submitted.⁶

The system is opening in three phases, and which phase covers your entries depends on their liquidation status:

Phase 1 launched April 20, 2026, and covers unliquidated entries and entries liquidated within 80 days. As of late May 2026, roughly $23 billion of an estimated $90 billion in queued Phase 1 claims had been approved for refund.
Phase 2 was scheduled for June 29, 2026, and covers reconciliation entries and entries subject to antidumping or countervailing duties. CBP estimated about 2.8 million entries worth roughly $28.7 billion in this category.
Phase 3 was targeted for late July 2026 and is intended to cover “finally liquidated” entries. This is the most legally contested category, with an estimated value above $30 billion.

By May 22, 2026, CBP had directed $20.6 billion in refunds to the Treasury for disbursement and had accepted applications for $85 billion in total refunds.¹ The government estimates more than $40 billion will be disbursed by the end of June 2026.⁷

Large importers have not relied on CAPE alone. FedEx sued Customs and Border Protection on February 23, 2026, seeking a full refund of all IEEPA duties it had paid, and was joined by Costco, Revlon, Kawasaki Motors, Bumble Bee Foods, and dozens of other corporations in similar suits.⁸⁹ Filing an individual lawsuit is one way to protect a refund claim if the government’s appeal succeeds in cutting off recovery for non-litigants.

What the Government’s Appeal Could Change

On June 3, 2026, the Department of Justice filed notices of appeal to the Federal Circuit challenging Judge Eaton’s universal refund order. The government’s core argument is that the CIT’s order operates as an impermissible universal injunction under the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. CASA, Inc., and that only the roughly 4,000 importers who filed their own lawsuits should receive refunds on finally liquidated entries.¹⁰ DOJ has also argued that CBP lacks the legal authority and the technological capacity to recalculate accounts for all 330,000 potentially eligible importers without individual suits.¹

If the government wins, the practical effect would fall on Phase 3, the finally liquidated entries. Importers who never sued could lose access to refunds on that category, while Phase 1 and Phase 2 recoveries, which cover entries whose liquidation is not yet final, are on firmer legal ground because reliquidating them does not require reopening closed customs decisions.

Judge Eaton scheduled a hearing for June 9, 2026, and demanded that CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott appear personally to explain the pace of refund processing. The DOJ objected and asked that deputies attend instead.¹¹

What Tariffs the Ruling Did Not Touch

The Supreme Court’s decision reached only tariffs imposed under IEEPA. Other duties remain in effect and are not refundable under this litigation:

Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, and vehicles.
Section 301 tariffs on China.
Section 122 tariffs that the administration imposed the day after the IEEPA ruling was announced.³

On February 21, 2026, the president invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a 10% global tariff, with the rate set to rise to 15%. Section 122 allows temporary import surcharges to address “fundamental international payments problems,” and the authority expires after 150 days without congressional approval.¹²

On May 7, 2026, the Court of International Trade struck down the Section 122 tariffs 2-1, but the relief was limited to the three importer plaintiffs who demonstrated standing: the State of Washington, Burlap and Barrel, Inc., and Basic Fun, Inc. The government appealed the next day, and the Federal Circuit granted an administrative stay on May 12, 2026, keeping the Section 122 tariffs in effect for everyone other than those three plaintiffs while the appeal proceeds.¹³ If you paid duties under Section 122, Section 232, or Section 301, those are not covered by the IEEPA refund process, and you would need to look to separate litigation or administrative channels.

Practical Next Steps

If you or your business paid IEEPA duties between February 2025 and February 2026, review your entry summaries and identify which fall into unliquidated, recently liquidated, reconciliation or AD/CVD, and finally liquidated categories. Work with your customs broker to submit a CAPE Declaration through the Automated Commercial Environment portal for the phase that applies. For finally liquidated entries in Phase 3, watch the Federal Circuit’s ruling on the government’s appeal, because a reversal could restrict refunds on that category to importers who filed their own suits. Larger importers with substantial finally liquidated exposure have chosen to file individual lawsuits as a hedge against that outcome.

1
PBS NewsHour. Trump Plans to Appeal Ruling Letting Importers Seek Refunds of Paid Struck-Down Tariffs
2
U.S. Supreme Court. Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287
3
White & Case. United States Terminates IEEPA-Based Tariffs Following Supreme Court Decision
4
Sullivan & Cromwell. Court of International Trade Issues Order Regarding Tariff Refunds
5
Patently-O. CIT Orders Refunds for All Importers, Not Just Litigants
6
Thompson Hine. CBP Confirms April 20 Launch of Phase 1 of the IEEPA Tariff Refund Process
7
Holland & Knight. IEEPA Tariff Refund Update: Government Appeals
8
NBC News. FedEx Sues Trump Over Tariff Refunds
9
Inbound Logistics. Big Brands Push Back: Costco, Revlon, Kawasaki and Others Sue for Tariff Refunds
10
Fortune. Trump Administration Plans to Appeal Ruling on Universal Tariff Refunds
11
Business Report. Tariff Refunds Could Soon Face a New Challenge From the Trump Administration
12
Carolina Journal. States Challenge to Trump Tariffs Faces Federal Court Hearing
13
Gibson Dunn. Section 122 Global Tariffs Invalidated by the Court of International Trade