Overview
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened the CAPE tool on Monday inside its ACE portal to take refund claims from importers or their licensed brokers, with ACH bank details required for payment.
- Phase 1 covers only entries that are still unliquidated or were finalized within roughly the past 80 days, and about 56,497 registered payees are eligible for approximately $127 billion in refunds including interest.
- CBP says approved claims should pay out in about 60 to 90 days, though incorrect CSV files, bad bank details, or heavy volumes could trigger rejections or slowdowns during automated validation.
- Refunds will go to the businesses that paid the duties rather than to consumers, though firms such as FedEx say they plan to return money to customers in cases where they collected tariff charges directly and separate lawsuits seek consumer reimbursement.
- The overall pool totals about $166 billion paid by roughly 330,000 importers across 53 million entries, with further phases and about $2.9 billion in deposits slated for manual handling under continuing trade court oversight and possible legal challenges.