After the U.S. Supreme Court, in its May 2026 decision in National Foreign Trade Council v. United States, struck down a series of executive-branch tariffs as exceeding presidential authority, thousands of American importers expected a straightforward path to getting their money back. For many small businesses, that path has turned out to be anything but.
Refund claims are being processed through U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CAPE portal, and roughly 15% of early submissions have already been rejected. That figure is based on estimates shared separately by three customs brokers and two trade attorneys who are actively filing Phase 1 claims on behalf of importer clients and who agreed to describe their observations on the condition that their firms not be named. CBP has not published official rejection data, so the figure reflects practitioner estimates rather than confirmed agency numbers. But the pattern it describes matches what importers themselves are reporting: a system so technically demanding that filing without a licensed customs broker or trade lawyer is, for most small businesses, functionally impossible.
The refunds cover duties that the Court determined were unlawfully imposed under broad executive tariff authority. Businesses that paid those duties on qualifying imports are now eligible to seek reimbursement, as the Associated Press has reported. But CBP structured the process in phases. Phase 1, which opened in late May 2026 and carries a filing deadline in mid-July 2026, covers entries that were liquidated and fall under the specific HTS headings identified in the Court’s ruling. Importers whose entries were not yet liquidated, or whose goods fall outside those headings, have no confirmed timeline for when their window opens.
Why claims are failing
The single most common reason for rejection is also the most preventable: payment routing errors. CBP processes refunds through the Automated Clearinghouse (ACH) system, and the agency’s official ACH page states that missing or incorrect ACH enrollment will block a refund outright. Importers who never enrolled, or whose banking details changed since their original entries were filed, face automatic failure before anyone reviews the merits of their claim.
Beyond ACH issues, the portal demands a level of customs fluency that most small business owners do not possess. Each refund request must be matched to specific entry numbers, Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) classification codes, and import dates that fall within the scope of the Court’s ruling. For a company that relied on a freight forwarder or third-party logistics provider to handle imports, reconstructing that documentation trail years after the fact can be a serious and expensive undertaking.
Trade attorneys who have assisted with early filings report that even minor inconsistencies, such as an HTS code that does not precisely match the entry summary on file with CBP, can trigger a denial. Whether a rejected claim can be corrected and resubmitted while the Phase 1 window remains open is not clearly addressed in CBP’s published guidance. That ambiguity has left filers operating under the assumption that their first submission needs to be right.
Small importers face a steeper climb
The structural disadvantage for smaller firms is hard to miss. Large importers typically maintain in-house trade compliance teams, keep active ACH enrollment, and retain detailed records of every entry filed with CBP. A company moving container loads of goods every month has infrastructure built for exactly this kind of filing.
A small retailer or manufacturer that imported a handful of shipments during the tariff period is in a fundamentally different position. These businesses often treated customs paperwork as something their freight forwarder handled on their behalf. They may not have copies of their own entry summaries. They may never have enrolled in ACH. And they almost certainly do not have staff who can interpret CBP’s eligibility criteria or navigate the CAPE portal without outside help.
Customs brokers and trade lawyers can bridge that gap, but their services carry real costs. For a business trying to recover a few thousand dollars in tariff overpayments, a broker’s fee can consume a meaningful share of the refund itself. For a business with tens of thousands at stake, the math works better, but the upfront expense still requires cash that many small importers are short on after years of absorbing inflated duty costs.
The U.S. Small Business Administration, the federal agency charged with supporting small firms, has not announced dedicated assistance programs for tariff refund filings as of June 2026. No major trade association, including the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, has publicly launched a subsidized filing program either. That leaves small importers largely on their own when deciding whether to hire professional help or attempt the portal themselves.
Members of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have not, as of early June 2026, introduced legislation or held hearings specifically addressing the CAPE portal’s accessibility for small businesses. Several trade groups have called on Congress to mandate an extended filing window and a simplified claims track for low-value refunds, but no formal legislative response has materialized.
What CBP has and has not disclosed
As of June 2026, CBP has not released a public dashboard or report showing how many Phase 1 claims have been filed, how many have been processed, or what the approval and denial rates look like. The agency has not published a breakdown of rejection reasons by category. And it has not announced a timeline for Phase 2 or any subsequent filing windows. CBP’s press office did not respond to a request for comment on the rejection rate or on whether the agency plans to publish portal performance data.
What CBP has published is operational guidance on ACH enrollment and general information about the CAPE portal’s requirements. The agency’s ACH page includes contact information for importers who need to verify or update their payment setup, and trade professionals uniformly recommend confirming ACH status before submitting anything.
No inspector general review or independent audit of the CAPE portal’s performance under the current wave of filings has been made public. Without that kind of oversight, the question of whether the system is producing systematically unequal outcomes for large versus small importers has not been independently verified.
What small businesses should do before the Phase 1 window closes
For importers who believe they are owed a refund, the most urgent step is verifying ACH enrollment with CBP using the contact channels on the agency’s ACH page. A valid claim will fail if the payment routing is wrong, and fixing enrollment issues takes time that the Phase 1 deadline may not allow.
Businesses should also gather every piece of import documentation they can locate: entry summaries, commercial invoices, HTS classification records, and any correspondence with freight forwarders or customs brokers who handled their shipments during the tariff period. The more complete the file, the lower the risk of a rejection based on missing or inconsistent data.
For those without customs filing experience, the decision to hire a broker or trade attorney should be weighed against the dollar value of the potential refund and the consequences of a denial. A broker’s fee may be a fraction of what is at stake, and a rejection in Phase 1 may not be correctable if the filing window closes before a revised submission can go through.
The larger question, whether CBP will simplify the portal, extend deadlines, or stand up dedicated support for small and first-time filers, has no answer in the current public record. Until the agency acts, small importers are left navigating a system designed for the trade compliance professionals who use it daily, not for the businesses that need it most right now.
