On March 6, 2026, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) held a closed conference to discuss the government’splan for administering the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) tariff refunds. The CIT paused its earlier order for immediate IEEPA tariff refunds to allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) time to account for the limitations and difficulties in complying with this aspect of the order. CBP, in a formal declaration, outlined a new 7-step process for refund payments. Importers take note: The first step is for your company to file a declaration in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system to initiate this process.
The CBP stated in its declaration that it is faced with an “unprecedented volume of refunds” and that the agency’s “existing administrative procedures and technology are not well suited to a task of this scale and will require manual work that will prevent personnel from fully carrying out the agency’s trade enforcement mission.” The CBP also noted that the current system “requires refunds be certified for accuracy by personnel from both CBP’s Office of Field Operations and Office of Finance, separately, before submission to the Department of the Treasury for issuance.” Assuming each entry subject to the IEEPA tariffs is entitled to a refund, there would be a total of 53,173,939 refunds involving 330,566 importers.
CBP’s New 7-Step Refund Process
CBP has developed a 7-step process to streamline and consolidate refunds and interest payments for importers’ payments of IEEPA tariffs. It is confident that it can develop and implement this new ACE system functionality in the next 45 days. While no further details were provided, it appears there is minimal action required by the importer after the first – and critical – step to get the process started.
- Importer files a declaration in ACE, with a list of entries on which IEEPA duties were paid.
- ACE runs a series of validations on each entry within the declaration and automatically recalculates the duty owed without the IEEPA tariffs (with applicable interest).
- CBP verifies the declaration and processes refunds as soon as practicable.
- ACE automatically finalizes (liquidates or reliquidates) entries.
- ACE automatically aggregates refunds – with interest – by importer and liquidation date.
- CBP certifies refunds.
- Department of the Treasury issues IEEPA refunds electronically.
Withum’s initial recommendation of tracking and understanding entries in the ACE system remains the same. Importers need to know exactly what tariffs were paid and when, in preparation for this first step of filing a declaration listing entries where IEEPA tariff duties were paid to initiate the refund process. Withum continues to track this development and will publish further updates on IEEPA tariff refunds as they develop.
Authors: Marina Gentile, Partner and Lead, Global Transfer Pricing Strategies | [email protected] and Mukul Chhabra | [email protected]
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