Tuesday, October 20, 2026
The news that moves freight
Trade & Customs Oct 12, 2026 · 7 min read

IEEPA refunds: a class action for importers who never sued

Trade court opens a refund route for small importers. No money moves this year. On 8 October the US Court of International Trade certified a nationwide class of importers who paid IEEPA tariffs from 1 February 2025 to 19 February 2026 and never sued. The court estimates about $30bn would otherwise stay with the government. Our view: this is the right door, but it is not a payment. ArentFox Schiff’s James Kim said the decision “doesn’t immediately expand refund eligibility or direct payment.” The Justice Department is still appealing refunds for non-plaintiffs. Brokers should list clients who never filed in CAPE (Customs’ refund portal). Our call: no class-wide refund order before end of Q1 2027.

The tariff refund class is real. The cheque for small importers is still months away.
On Thursday 8 October the US Court of International Trade certified a nationwide class of importers in Freestyle World, Inc. v. United States. Judge Richard Eaton’s order covers importers who paid IEEPA tariffs between 1 February 2025 and 19 February 2026 and who have not filed their own refund suits. IEEPA is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the law the Supreme Court ruled could not be used to impose those tariffs in February 2026. More than 4,000 importers did file their own suits, according to the order as reported by Supply Chain Dive. The class is for everyone else.
Our view is simple. This is the first legal route that could reach the small and occasional importer who never sued and never used CAPE, the Customs refund portal. That matters, and the court was right to build it. But it is a route, not a payment. Nothing in the order sends money to anyone. Forwarders and customs brokers should treat it as a reason to get client records in order, not as news to pass on as “refund coming.”

What the court actually did

A class action lets one case speak for a whole group of people with the same claim. Here, the group is importers of record who paid the struck-down duties and stayed out of court. The importer of record is the party legally responsible for an entry and the one Customs refunds.
The court explained why. “Some importers of record have not taken advantage of CAPE,” the order says, as quoted by Supply Chain Dive. It goes on: “It is believed that these are overwhelmingly small importers who, because of the cost or effort involved in filing a CAPE declaration, or because they are unaware of the program, will never take advantage of CAPE.”
Judge Eaton was open about the aim. “Today, the court is certifying a class in the hope, and expectation, that this certification will lead to the liquidation or reliquidation of all of the entries on which the unlawful IEEPA duties were imposed, and the refund of those duties to the importers of record that paid them,” the order says (Supply Chain Dive). Liquidation is Customs’ final calculation of the duty owed on an entry. Reliquidation reopens that calculation, which is how a refund gets paid.
Bloomberg Law reports that Eaton wrote “tens of thousands of importers of record” could be denied liquidation or reliquidation without the class. Class counsel, in a statement quoted by Bloomberg Law, called the certification “a vital step toward informing and empowering all importers.”
Next steps are procedural. A closed conference with the parties is set for 13 October. Proposed scheduling for further class-action filings is due 22 October (Supply Chain Dive).

The money: how much is still out there

The numbers explain why the court acted. About $166bn was collected under the invalidated tariffs, and Customs has paid out more than $100bn through CAPE, per Supply Chain Dive. The court estimates about $30bn would stay with the government without a class action.
CAPE itself has moved fast. As of 2 October, Customs had received 297,887 CAPE declarations, according to Foley & Lardner’s 12 October roundup in the National Law Review. Of those, 209,262 passed validation, covering 27.4 million entries and “about $136.6 billion in potential and certified refunds accepted for processing.” Bloomberg Law adds that about $126bn in duties and interest had been sent to the Treasury for payment as of 2 October.
Look at how far that has come. In June, Customs testified that about $23bn had been approved and sent to the Treasury, according to Holland & Knight. By 10 July it was about $86.3bn, per Steptoe. Now it is about $126bn. The machine works for importers who use it. The people stuck are the ones outside it.
Not every filing gets through. Foley & Lardner reports 6.2 million entries failed validation. The main reasons were that they fell outside Customs’ 90-day reliquidation window, lacked the Chapter 99 HTS numbers tied to the IEEPA duties, or had already been submitted on an earlier declaration. Chapter 99 numbers are the special tariff codes added to an entry line to show an extra duty applied. In our view, two of those three failures are data-entry problems a broker can often spot.

Why we don’t expect fast money

The Justice Department has not accepted that the court can order refunds for importers who did not sue. In June it appealed the court’s universal refund orders to the Federal Circuit, the appeals court above the trade court. Holland & Knight said the government was expected to argue the orders are “impermissible universal injunctions” under the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Trump v. CASA, which limited court orders that protect people who are not parties to a case. At a 9 June hearing, the Justice Department said the court “cannot order the government to refund money to non-plaintiffs,” per Holland & Knight.
That appeal is still pending, Supply Chain Dive reports. A class action is partly a way around it: class members are, in a legal sense, in the case. But Foley & Lardner says a Justice Department appeal of the certification itself is expected. So the class now has two appeals hanging over it.
James Kim, an international trade partner at ArentFox Schiff, put it plainly. “The decision doesn’t immediately expand refund eligibility or direct payment,” he wrote on LinkedIn, as quoted by Supply Chain Dive. “It does, however, create a potential path forward for non-litigants, toward a single order requiring refunds to be issued to importers that have not pursued individual lawsuits.” Intelligent Audit’s 12 October shipper brief made the same point: the ruling “does not itself direct immediate payments.”
There is also a separate track for importers who did sue. CAPE Phase 3 opened on 6 October for finally liquidated entries, meaning entries whose duty calculation is past the point Customs normally reopens. Foley & Lardner reports 477 declarations covering 425,517 entries were accepted. That phase is for plaintiffs who gave Customs their importer-of-record details by the end of July. Customs says it will soon issue instructions for those who filed later. Foley’s advice for finally liquidated entries is that a lawsuit remains the fastest route.

The gap nobody has fixed: AD/CVD entries

One group is stuck whether it sued or not. These are entries that carried both IEEPA duties and anti-dumping or countervailing duties (AD/CVD). Anti-dumping duties offset goods sold below fair value. Countervailing duties offset foreign subsidies.
Foley & Lardner says “AD/CVD entries are the largest remaining class of entries with no refund mechanism.” The problem is timing, Foley says: AD/CVD duty rates can take years to become final, which keeps these entries out of the normal refund path. Judge Eaton has told the plaintiffs and the National Seafood Association, which joined the case, to file refund-related motions by 19 October. The government’s response is due 9 November.

What forwarders and brokers should do now

First, build the list. Which of your importer-of-record clients paid IEEPA duty and never filed a CAPE declaration or a lawsuit? These are usually the smallest accounts. They are the people the class was built for, and they are the least likely to know it exists.
Second, clean the data. Make sure each client’s importer-of-record details and ACH refund bank details with Customs are current. If a refund order does come, money goes to the importer of record that paid. Bad details mean delay.
Third, re-check failed CAPE filings. Missing Chapter 99 lines and duplicate submissions are fixable. Entries outside the reliquidation window may now be class matters rather than dead ends.
Fourth, split out AD/CVD-heavy clients. They need a different conversation, and 19 October and 9 November are their dates to watch.
Fifth, set expectations. Clients who hear “class action” will hear “money.” Tell them the honest version: the door is open, the timetable is not set, and the government is fighting it.

Our call

The 22 October filing will give the class a schedule, not a payout. With the Justice Department’s non-plaintiff appeal unresolved and a second appeal expected against the class, we do not expect a class-wide refund order before the end of Q1 2027. We do expect the AD/CVD track to produce a court ruling on whether those entries can be refunded at all by the end of this year, because the briefing closes on 9 November. Importers and brokers who have their records clean when either ruling lands will be paid first.

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