Thousands of businesses that paid tariffs on goods shipped through FedEx and UPS could soon see money coming back. Both carriers have pledged to pass along their share of what U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates could total more than $5 billion in refunds, following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The commitments mark a rare instance of major logistics companies voluntarily promising full pass-through of government refunds, but the practical question for shippers is straightforward: how quickly will the money arrive, and will it be complete?
Why refunds are owed
The IEEPA tariffs, imposed during the second Trump administration on categories of imported goods including small-parcel shipments and cross-border e-commerce products, were challenged in federal court and ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court as an unlawful use of emergency economic authority. The Court of International Trade then issued a follow-on ruling establishing that all importers of record are entitled to refunds of duties collected under the invalidated tariffs.
That legal chain matters because of how international shipping works. When FedEx or UPS handles customs clearance for a client, the carrier often serves as the importer of record on the customs entry. That means CBP will issue refund checks to the carriers first, not directly to the businesses that originally paid the tariff costs. Without a clear commitment from the carriers, those refunds could sit in corporate accounts indefinitely or get absorbed into general revenue.
What FedEx and UPS have promised
FedEx moved early to address that concern. The company filed a protective claim at the Court of International Trade and publicly stated it would return refunds to the customers who paid the underlying tariffs. The Associated Press confirmed the pledge and linked it directly to FedEx’s legal filing in its reporting on the refund process, giving the commitment a layer of legal accountability that goes beyond a press release.
UPS has also been reported as indicating it will return eligible funds to shippers. However, as of May 2026, no direct primary statement from UPS with the same specificity as FedEx’s court-linked pledge has appeared in public filings reviewed here. The company’s commitment has been described alongside FedEx’s in broader coverage of the refund process, but the sourcing for UPS’s pledge is thinner and lacks a documented court filing or attributable public statement. Businesses that shipped through UPS may want to request written confirmation of how and when refunds will be distributed before relying on the reported commitment.
Both companies were among the largest facilitators of imports subject to the now-invalidated tariffs, particularly in cross-border e-commerce and small-parcel shipping, which places them at the center of the refund pipeline.
Open questions that could delay payouts
Several gaps stand between the pledge and the payoff.
Timeline: CBP has not published a detailed schedule for when refund payments will begin reaching carriers. Without that, businesses cannot predict when cash will land in their accounts.
Calculation methodology: The agency has not disclosed exactly how individual refund amounts will be calculated across what is likely millions of affected import entries. For shippers who moved goods steadily over months of IEEPA tariffs, the per-shipment math could be complex.
Smaller importers: The Court of International Trade’s ruling covers all importers of record, a category that extends well beyond FedEx and UPS to include freight forwarders, customs brokers, and companies that self-clear shipments. Whether CBP will prioritize or batch claims by size, and whether smaller importers will face longer wait times, remains unaddressed in public guidance.
Billing accuracy: When carriers serve as importer of record, their internal billing systems determine how tariff costs are allocated to individual shipments. If tariff charges were bundled into broader fees rather than itemized, matching a CBP refund to a specific customer becomes harder. Neither carrier has disclosed how it plans to audit historical billing to ensure every dollar reaches the right recipient, or how it will handle cases where customers have since changed brokers, closed accounts, or gone out of business.
Interest: Court-ordered customs refunds can include statutory interest for the period between collection and repayment. CBP’s program page confirms that duties will be refunded but does not spell out whether carriers will receive interest and, if so, whether that interest must be passed through to the original payers. For businesses that absorbed elevated costs, the presence or absence of interest could meaningfully change the size of the recovery.
Putting the $5 billion figure in context
The $5 billion estimate comes from CBP and represents the potential total across all affected importers, not a guaranteed payout to FedEx and UPS customers specifically. The actual amount flowing through those two carriers depends on what share of IEEPA-affected imports they handled as importers of record. That share is likely substantial given their dominance in parcel-level imports, but no public data breaks down the carrier-level split. Any attempt to assign a specific dollar figure to either company would be speculative at this point.
What is not speculative is the real-world impact. Many small and mid-size businesses absorbed IEEPA tariff costs by raising prices, cutting margins, or reducing staff. For those companies, even a partial refund could provide meaningful relief, particularly if it arrives with interest.
What affected businesses should do before June 2026
For shippers who believe they are owed a refund, the first practical step is to pull shipping records for any entries where FedEx or UPS served as importer of record during the period when IEEPA tariffs were in effect. Confirm whether tariff charges were itemized on invoices, and contact the carrier’s trade services or customs brokerage team to ask how refund distribution will work.
Companies that used multiple carriers or brokers should assemble a consolidated list of entry numbers, dates, and tariff lines so they can track potential refunds across several intermediaries. Sending a written request asking each carrier to confirm that IEEPA-related refunds received from CBP will be passed through in full, with an explanation of how amounts will be calculated at the shipment level, creates a paper trail that could prove valuable if disputes arise later.
Finally, shippers should bookmark CBP’s IEEPA duty refunds page and check it regularly for updates on procedure, timing, and eligibility. The rules governing who gets paid and how much will continue to be set by the government, not by the carriers. Staying close to those primary sources offers the best chance of recovering the full amount owed under the court’s decision.
