A New York wine importer has received a $110,000 refund from U.S. Customs and Border Protection for tariff duties the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. It is the first confirmed repayment since that ruling, and it did not come through any new government program. The company filed a formal protest using a decades-old paperwork process, CBP agreed the charges were unlawful, and the check went out.
One company down. Roughly 329,999 to go.
Those remaining importers are collectively owed a share of approximately $166 billion in duties collected, plus interest, according to a sworn federal court filing. That total represents duties collected under the now-invalidated tariffs; the final refund figure may differ as some entries could be subject to partial adjustments or offsets. No firm timeline exists for when most of that money will arrive, and the government system designed to handle refunds at scale has yet to prove it can do the job.
How $166 billion in collected duties ended up on the government’s books
The tariffs at the center of this story were imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law originally written to let presidents freeze assets and block financial transactions during national emergencies. The Trump administration used IEEPA for something the statute had never been used for: levying broad import duties on goods from dozens of countries. Legal challenges followed almost immediately, and the Supreme Court ultimately held that IEEPA does not grant the president authority to impose tariffs. That decision invalidated the duties and created the refund obligation CBP is now scrambling to meet.
In a sworn declaration filed with the U.S. Court of International Trade on March 4, 2026, CBP trade official Brandon Lord put the numbers on the record: more than 330,000 importers of record, over 53 million individual entry filings, and approximately $166 billion in IEEPA duties collected that are now subject to repayment with interest. That figure represents total duties collected under the invalidated tariffs as reported in the government’s own accounting, not an outside estimate, though the ultimate refund total could be lower if some entries were partially adjusted or offset before repayment. Lord told the court a working refund process could be operational within 45 days of the filing, as reported by the Associated Press.
The 330,000 count reflects importers of record listed in CBP’s systems. The actual number of affected businesses is likely higher, because many companies import through licensed customs brokers rather than filing entries under their own names.
A separate federal court ruling broadened who qualifies for repayment. A judge held that every importer of record is entitled to benefit from the Supreme Court’s decision, not just the companies that originally sued. As the AP reported, that means any business that paid the now-invalidated tariffs can seek a refund, whether or not it ever joined the litigation.
Real businesses, real cash crunches
“We paid over $2 million in IEEPA duties on European wines over the past year, and every dollar of that came straight out of our operating budget,” said one mid-Atlantic wine and spirits distributor who spoke on condition of anonymity because the company has a pending protest with CBP. “We had to delay a warehouse expansion and cut two sales positions. Getting that money back is not a windfall. It is money we already earned and were forced to hand over.”
Wine importers are far from alone. The National Retail Federation has said its members across apparel, electronics, and home goods collectively paid billions in IEEPA duties that strained inventory budgets and forced price increases on consumers. According to an Associated Press report published in May 2026, a small auto-parts importer in Michigan said the company had paid roughly $800,000 in tariffs on brake components from Germany and was now carrying a line of credit it would not have needed otherwise. A Texas-based electronics distributor described a similar bind in comments submitted to the Court of International Trade, estimating $3.4 million in IEEPA duties on consumer devices that it could not pass along to retail partners without losing shelf space.
“Every day that money sits with the government instead of in our accounts is a day we are paying interest on loans we took out to cover the tariffs,” said Peter Quinter, a trade attorney at the law firm GrayRobinson who represents several affected importers. “For small and mid-size companies, this is not an abstraction. It is a liquidity crisis.”
How the wine importer actually got paid
The New York company did not wait for a new system. It used the long-standing protest process under 19 U.S.C. Section 1514, which allows any importer to formally contest a CBP decision on duties, fees, or charges. In plain terms: the company filed detailed paperwork challenging specific shipments, CBP reviewed the protest in light of the Supreme Court ruling, agreed the tariffs were unlawful, reprocessed the entries, and cut the check.
The refund was first reported by trade press outlets covering the Court of International Trade docket, though no primary CBP documentation, such as a redacted protest decision or reprocessing notice, has been made public. That means it is difficult to confirm the exact filing dates or how long the process took from start to finish. No representative of the wine importer has spoken publicly about the refund, and the company’s identity has not been disclosed in court filings or press reports.
The protest route has been available for decades, but it is labor-intensive by design. Each challenged entry requires its own paperwork and individual review by CBP personnel. For a company with a handful of shipments, that is manageable. For an importer with thousands of entries, it is a bottleneck that could take months or longer.
The new system CBP is building to handle the rest
Processing 53 million entries one at a time would take years. To avoid that, CBP announced a new automated tool called the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system, or CAPE. Agency documents tied to CSMS message 68315804 set an April 20, 2026, deployment date. The notice is accessible through CBP’s CSMS archive or directly via the ACE trade portal.
CAPE is designed to let importers enroll electronically, automatically match their entries to eligible IEEPA duties, and process refunds in batches rather than case by case. On paper, it solves the core problem: getting money back to hundreds of thousands of businesses without drowning CBP field offices in manual work.
But as of late May 2026, CBP has not published pilot results, enrollment statistics, or processing benchmarks. The agency’s ACE portal guidance explains how to submit bank information and authorize electronic disbursements, but it says nothing about capacity limits or how the queue will be prioritized.
Lord’s 45-day estimate, measured from the March 4 filing, pointed to initial operations around mid-April, roughly aligned with the CAPE launch. The court filing did not specify how many importers could be processed at once or how quickly the $166 billion obligation would be drawn down. The gap between a “working process” and full disbursement could stretch for months, particularly if CBP must reconcile conflicting data in legacy systems or manage a flood of inquiries from customs brokers and trade attorneys.
The interest question no one has answered
Importers are legally entitled to interest on the unlawful duties, but CBP has not publicly detailed how it will calculate those payments. Open questions include whether the agency will apply a uniform rate across all IEEPA refunds or adjust based on the timing of each entry’s original processing. Without sample notices or anonymized statements, companies cannot forecast their final refund amounts or reconcile them against internal books.
For businesses that paid millions in tariffs over multiple quarters, the interest component alone could be substantial. The lack of clarity is complicating financial planning at exactly the moment these companies need to make decisions about hiring, inventory, and expansion.
What importers can do right now
The wine importer’s refund proves that money can move through existing channels before CAPE is fully operational. Section 1514 protests remain a valid option for any business willing to file entry-by-entry paperwork and wait for individual review. But that route is slow by design, and CBP’s handling may vary from port to port until CAPE standardizes the workflow.
“If you have a manageable number of entries and a good customs broker, filing a protest now is worth considering,” Quinter said. “But if you have thousands of entries, you are probably better off waiting for CAPE and making sure your ACE account and banking details are current so you are ready the moment the system opens enrollment.”
One check down, $166 billion in collected duties still to return
For most of the 330,000 affected importers, the practical reality as of late May 2026 is a planning exercise built on incomplete information. The hard numbers from Lord’s sworn court declaration establish the scale. The CAPE announcement signals that CBP has a plan. And one $110,000 check to a wine company in New York proves the obligation is real, not theoretical.
What no one at CBP, the Court of International Trade, or the Treasury Department has been willing to say is how long the line actually is, or when the businesses at the back of it will finally see their money. For a small importer carrying six figures in debt taken on to cover tariffs the Supreme Court called illegal, that silence is its own kind of cost.
