Customs and Border Protection has upgraded its online refund-request processing platform, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE), to encompass duties that are awaiting reconciliation of final tariff calculations, completing Phase 2 of the system’s rollout.
Those flagged entries will still be limited to unliquidated entries and those that were liquidated within 80 days of the declaration filing date within CAPE, CBP said.
Importers have been waiting on pins and needles for the third phase of the CAPE deployment, which CBP has said will have the capability to process refunds on finally liquidated entries, which account for about $11.4 billion, or 6.9 percent, of all the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) payments made by importers.
CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner Susan Thomas said earlier this month that those capabilities could come online in late July, barring delays to the technical rollout.
About 330,000 importers are eligible for refunds on payments into President Donald Trump’s now-defunct IEEPA tariff scheme, and brands and retailers like Costco, Walmart and Target, along with shipping firms like FedEx, UPS and DHL, are among the refund petitioners.
Once Phase 3 of the CAPE deployment is complete, CBP said about 95 percent of the entries that were hit with IEEPA duties will be eligible for refunds through the system.
Many companies have already seen at least partial refunds processed, much to the benefit of their bottom lines—and potentially, their customer bases.
FedEx, for example, announced on its earnings call last week that it had received $800 million in IEEPA tariff refunds, a hefty sum that chief customer officer Brie Carere claims is being “held for refund to customers” whose payouts are to commence in August.
UPS earlier this year said it would pass along refunds to its customers, too. During an April earnings call, CEO Carol Tomé said the company remitted more than $5 billion to the U.S. Treasury in the form of IEEPA tariff payments. “We think it’s going to take some time before the Treasury remits money to us, but as soon as we get that money, we are going to remit it right back to our customer.”
Nike’s fiscal Q4 results, reported Tuesday, showed earnings up 407 percent to $1.1 billion from $211 million during Q4 of 2025—a phenomenon the brand attributed to a 52-cents-per-share benefit correlated directly to the projected recovery of IEEPA refunds.
The company did not, however, discuss how the recovered capital would impact its consumer base. Like Shein, Temu, Costco and Lululemon, the brand now faces a class action lawsuit alleging that it failed to pass along those paybacks to shoppers who say they paid up to $10 more for its products.
According to a report from consumer advocacy website Top Class Actions on Tuesday, similar class action suits are brewing against Home Depot, Macy’s, Adidas, On Running, SharkNinja and Birkenstock.
