More than 330,000 importers paid up to $166 billion in duties on 53 million imports.
Published April 20, 2026
A refund system set up to allow companies to recover illegally collected duties from the U.S. government has gone live as thousands of companies scramble to make claims.
“So far, things have gone very well,” said Jay Foreman, CEO of toy maker Basic Fun, who has a team in a “war room” at its headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida, and will be ready to begin filing applications once the system goes live at 8 a.m. ET (12 GMT) on Monday.
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Foreman said the system did not crash as much as some had feared it would under the onslaught of submission attempts, but instead sometimes disallowed uploads and forced retries. The company has over 500 files that need to be uploaded to the system, which can be uploaded in batches.
“But if you load it too much or the system gets too busy, the load will come back,” Foreman said in an email about the process’s behavior in the early stages. “Over 50% of our invoices have been loaded so far and we expect all invoices to be loaded within the next few hours. We are very happy to have started this process early.”
Companies contacted by Reuters in recent days expressed concerns about the durability of a new system created in response to a court order in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is preparing to return up to $166 billion to importers.
The U.S. Supreme Court in February struck down tariffs pursued by President Donald Trump under a law meant to apply in national emergencies, handing the Republican president a stinging defeat.
As of April 9, approximately 56,497 importers had completed the necessary steps to receive electronic refunds, amounting to $127 billion, more than three-quarters of the total amount eligible for refunds, Customs officials said in a court filing. More than 330,000 importers paid the tariffs in question on 53 million imported products.
Companies must file tax returns listing products for which they incurred billions of dollars in import taxes that were later blocked by courts. If CBP approves the claim, it will take 60 to 90 days for a refund to be issued, the agency said.
However, the government expects to process refunds in stages, focusing first on recent duty payments. A number of technical and procedural issues could delay an importer’s application, so any reimbursements that companies plan to make to customers will likely have to be made slowly and piecemeal.
It is unclear whether registering refund requests as early as possible on the portal will affect processing speed, but many businesses have decided not to risk waiting.
A CBP spokesperson said Friday that CBP has established a system to “efficiently process refunds to importers and intermediaries who have paid duties in accordance with court orders.”
It’s the latest development in a protracted battle over emergency tariffs levied over the past year as President Trump seeks to rebuild U.S. trade relations. The ever-changing tariffs have disrupted global business, as companies scramble to move supply chains to avoid tariffs and figure out who will ultimately pay the taxes.
