IEEPA refunds: the money is moving, the late filers are not

IEEPA refunds are mostly paid. The importers left behind need a date CBP has not given. CBP is “largely able to issue refunds within sixty days of receiving the Phase 1 refund request.” That is the verdict of Gregory Husisian of Foley & Lardner, writing in the National Law Review on Monday 19 October. “CAPE Phase 1 refunds continue to work smoothly,” he wrote.
CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries) is the online system CBP built to repay the IEEPA tariffs. These were the duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The court case covers duties paid from 1 February 2025. The refunds follow a Supreme Court decision in February 2026.
Our view is simple. For most importers, the refund story is nearly over. The money is moving at a predictable speed, and brokers can quote it. The open problem is narrower: importers with old entries that CBP has already closed. Their path runs through a lawsuit and a filing phase that is still being built. No one, CBP included, has published a date for the next step.

How much has been repaid

The numbers are large and they are mostly paid out.
Davis Wright Tremaine, writing on 14 October, said “over 75% of the roughly $166 billion in IEEPA duties collected have been refunded with interest.” That was as of 2 October. The same firm said “Nearly 330,000 importers paid IEEPA duties.”
CBP’s own figures come from a sworn declaration filed with the Court of International Trade (CIT) on 15 September. It was signed by Brandon Lord in the case Freestyle World, Inc. v. CBP. As of 11 September, CBP reported:

• 286,044 CAPE declarations submitted, and 201,293 that passed file checks.
• About 27.2 million entries covered by those declarations.
• About $134.7 billion in potential and certified refunds accepted for processing.
• About $122 billion, duty plus interest, certified and sent to the Treasury for payment.
• 20,184 refunds, worth about $1.3 billion, not sent because the importer had not given ACH banking details. ACH (Automated Clearing House) is an electronic bank transfer system.

Those two sets of figures fit together. Three-quarters of $166 billion is about $124.5 billion, close to the $122 billion CBP had certified three weeks earlier.
Phase 1 is not flawless. Husisian flags glitches, including how to handle IEEPA “tariffs that were paid as part of prior disclosures.” A prior disclosure is a voluntary filing in which an importer tells CBP it underpaid and pays the difference. Where IEEPA duty was paid that way, the refund route is less clear.

Phase 3: who is in and who is stuck

Phase 3 is where the delay sits.
It launched on 6 October. In CBP’s words to the court, it covers finally liquidated entries for which the court has ordered reliquidation. Liquidation is CBP’s final calculation of the duty owed on an entry. Once it is final, an importer normally cannot reopen it without going to court. Husisian describes Phase 3 as “covering entries more than 80 days past liquidation.”
Eligibility is tight. Only importers who sued under 28 U.S.C. § 1581(i), the catch-all provision that lets importers bring certain cases to the CIT, can use it. They also needed to have given CBP a valid importer of record number by a cut-off. CBP’s declaration puts that cut-off at 30 July 2026. Foley’s note says 31 July. We use CBP’s date.
Many missed it through no fault of their own. “Because many law firms did not receive filing instructions until August, numerous importers entitled to refunds remain temporarily unable to participate,” Husisian wrote.
CBP has promised more. Its September declaration said it “will provide additional instructions regarding CAPE Phase 3” for plaintiffs who gave their importer number after 30 July. Foley adds: “CBP has advised the Court that additional instructions are forthcoming, but has provided no date.”
Davis Wright Tremaine says Phase 3 serves “nearly 7,000 importers that have filed nearly 4,000 lawsuits in the court.”

The 20 October date is a reading, not an announcement

Some clients will have heard that the next Phase 3 group opens on Tuesday 20 October. Treat that with care.
The date comes from Foley’s note. Husisian says CBP “suggested that refunds would occur on a ‘biweekly cadence,’” and that this “implies that the next group could open up on October 20th.” Two weeks after 6 October is 20 October. That is arithmetic and an inference by a law firm. It is not a CBP announcement. The word “biweekly” does not appear in CBP’s 15 September declaration.
So a broker telling a client “you can file on the 20th” is going further than any published source. The honest line is: Foley thinks a group could open on 20 October; CBP has not said so; watch for a CSMS message. CSMS, the Cargo Systems Messaging Service, is how CBP tells the trade about system changes.

The class action helps small importers, slowly

On 8 October the CIT certified a class in the Freestyle World case. Davis Wright Tremaine calls it only the second class the court has ever certified.
The class covers “All importers of record who paid duties imposed by the Challenged Tariff Orders” between 1 February 2025 and 19 February 2026. It excludes “any entity that has separately filed an action seeking to recover IEEPA duties payments.” Davis Wright Tremaine also says it does not cover the IEEPA tariffs on Brazilian and Indian goods.
Foley says the class is for importers whose refunds do not justify the cost of their own case. That is many small importers.
But a class certification is not a refund order. “Judge Eaton has not yet issued a classwide relief order,” Davis Wright Tremaine notes. The firm expects the government to appeal the certification. By contrast, it says Judge Eaton “has issued an individual refund order within four business days of filing a case.”
Both firms land in the same place. Husisian: “Individual litigation remains the more direct, certain, and faster route to obtaining refunds.” Davis Wright Tremaine: “filing an individual case is still likely to yield a favorable result most quickly.”
There is a clock on that choice. Foley flags February 2027 as the earliest possible expiry of the two-year limit for § 1581(i) refund suits. Davis Wright Tremaine says the period “runs through February 4, 2027, at the earliest.”
Husisian also warns about the other direction of travel. The Justice Department, he writes, “is aggressively expanding its use of the False Claims Act” to pursue customs violations. His conclusion: “In the current enforcement environment, the importance of identifying tariff underpayments early has never been greater.”

What forwarders and brokers should do now

Our reading for the trade, in order of urgency:

• Quote 60 days for Phase 1. That is the realistic cash-flow date Foley reports. Do not promise faster.
• Chase ACH details. CBP said $1.3 billion in refunds sat unpaid because importers had not set up bank details. That is the easiest money to unlock and it sits with your clients, not CBP.
• Sort clients by entry status. Unliquidated and recently liquidated entries go through the earlier CAPE phases. Finally liquidated entries need a lawsuit and Phase 3.
• Do not quote 20 October as fact. Say a group may open; tell clients to wait for a CSMS message.
• Flag the class to small importers, and flag its limits. It may suit a client with a small claim and no urgency. It will be slower. It does not cover Brazil or India tariffs.
• Put February 2027 in the diary. Any client with a large claim on closed entries and no lawsuit is running out of road.
• Treat refunds and compliance as one job. A refund review that finds an underpayment elsewhere is a prior-disclosure question, and the enforcement climate makes that more pressing.

None of this is legal advice. Clients with real money at stake need a trade lawyer.
For the market, the cash matters. Billions returning to importers’ balance sheets will ease working capital for many shippers. Some of that money will be spent on inventory and freight. The class and the Phase 3 backlog decide how much of the remaining quarter of the money reaches smaller importers, and when.

Our call

We expect CBP to publish Phase 3 instructions for the importers who gave their numbers after 30 July by the end of November 2026. The court is watching, CBP has promised instructions in writing, and about three-quarters of the money is already out. Whether or not a group opens on 20 October, we expect at least one more Phase 3 group to open before mid-November.
We also expect a rise in individual § 1581(i) suits from mid-sized importers in the first quarter of 2027, ahead of the February deadline. The class will not deliver money fast enough for anyone who can afford a lawyer.

Sources

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• National Law Review (Foley & Lardner) — Tariff-ied! This Week in International Trade (October 19, 2026), 19 Oct 2026 \
• CourtListener — Declaration of Brandon Lord, Freestyle World, Inc. v. CBP, Court No. 26-01088, Doc. 50, 15 Sep 2026 \
• Davis Wright Tremaine — Trade Court Certifies Non-Litigant Importer Class in IEEPA Duty Refund Litigation, 14 Oct 2026