CAPE Portal Opens for IEEPA Tariff Refund Claims — What Importers Need to Know

U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched the Customs Automated Processing Environment (CAPE) portal on April 20, 2026, opening the official mechanism for businesses to file IEEPA tariff refund claims following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump.

The portal — a new module within the existing ACE (Automated Commercial Environment) system — is the primary way U.S. importers who paid IEEPA tariffs between early 2025 and February 20, 2026 can now seek recovery of those payments.

What Launched Today

Phase 1 of the CAPE portal accepts claims for two categories of entries:

• Unliquidated entries — entries where CBP has not yet issued a final duty assessment
• Entries liquidated within the past 80 days — entries within the statutory protest window

CBP has estimated a 60-to-90-day processing timeline from claim submission to ACH refund disbursement for Phase 1.

How to File

Importers must prepare and upload a CSV declaration listing each affected entry line, including entry numbers, port codes, HTS codes, IEEPA Chapter 99 codes, and the IEEPA duty amounts paid. The portal requires ACE access and a verified ACH banking profile for refund disbursement.

Detailed filing guidance is available in our CAPE portal walkthrough.

What’s Next

Phase 2 of the CAPE portal — covering entries with pending protests and entries liquidated more than 80 days ago — has not yet been announced with a launch date. Importers with entries that fall outside Phase 1’s scope should begin documenting those entries now.

The estimated total IEEPA refund program represents approximately $166 billion across an estimated 330,000 affected U.S. businesses, according to figures cited by CBP and trade press.