The legal battle over IEEPA tariffs is settled. The Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional. CBP has been ordered to issue refunds. The money is yours — it’s just a matter of getting it back.
But here’s the problem: the refund process has real mechanics. Deadlines, data requirements, filing formats, and queue positions all determine whether you get your money in months or years. And five specific mistakes — each one entirely preventable — are responsible for the vast majority of delays, rejections, and lost recovery rights we’re seeing across the importer community.
If you’re in the early stages of your recovery process, read this before you file anything. If you’ve already started, audit your approach against these five errors. Catching even one of them now could save you six months of processing delay.
Mistake 1: Missing the 180-Day Protest Deadline
This is the costliest mistake an importer can make — and it’s the one with the hardest deadline. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
What goes wrong
Under 19 U.S.C. Section 1514, you have exactly 180 days from the date of liquidation to file a formal protest with CBP. This clock starts when CBP finalizes the duty assessment on each entry — not when the Supreme Court issued its ruling, not when CAPE launches, and not when you get around to reviewing your data.
The first IEEPA tariffs took effect on February 4, 2025. Entries from that date have a normal liquidation cycle of approximately 314 days, which means they started liquidating around December 2025. The 180-day protest window on those earliest liquidations closes as early as June 2026. That’s not a hypothetical future risk — it’s weeks away.
Many importers assume that the Supreme Court ruling or the CIT’s March 4 order somehow pauses or extends protest deadlines. It does not. The 180-day window is statutory. It runs regardless of the legal and political environment. A protested entry remains “not final” and is covered by the CIT’s universal refund order. An unprotested entry that passes the 180-day mark becomes finally liquidated — and the only remaining path is CIT litigation, which is slower, more expensive, and requires trade counsel.
The consequences
An entry with $75,000 in IEEPA duties that passes the protest deadline without a filing may require $15,000-$30,000 in legal fees to pursue through CIT litigation under 28 U.S.C. Section 1581(i). The CIT path also takes 12-24+ months, compared to the 18-36 month protest processing timeline that at least preserves your place in the administrative queue.
Worse, some entries may become unrecoverable entirely if the two-year statute of limitations for CIT action has also passed — a scenario that becomes possible for the earliest IEEPA entries by early 2027.
How to avoid it
Pull your ES-003 Entry Summary data from ACE today. Identify every entry that has been liquidated. Calculate the 180-day deadline for each one. File protective protests on every entry within the window — even if you haven’t fully calculated your refund amount yet. A protective protest preserves your rights while you complete the analysis.
Your customs broker can file these protests through ACE. The filing itself costs nothing beyond your broker’s time. There is no downside to filing a protective protest, and the downside of not filing is potentially catastrophic.
For a detailed walkthrough of the protest filing process and accelerated disposition requests, see our 180-day protest window guide.
Get your free Impact Assessment →
Mistake 2: Submitting Incomplete or Unvalidated ACE Data
CBP processes claims based on the data you submit. If that data is incomplete, inconsistent, or improperly formatted, your claim goes to the back of the review queue — or gets rejected outright and has to be refiled.
What goes wrong
The most common data problems we see fall into four categories:
Missing entry lines. Importers who pull data from a single customs broker miss entries filed through other brokers. If you used two brokers during the IEEPA period — one for ocean freight and one for air freight, for example — you have two separate data sets that need to be consolidated. A claim that covers only 70% of your entries leaves 30% of your money on the table and may need to be supplemented later, which means re-entering the processing queue.
Incorrect HTS code filtering. Some importers cast too wide a net (including Section 301 or Section 232 entries in their IEEPA claim) or too narrow a net (filtering on 9903.01 but missing 9903.02, or vice versa). Either error triggers CBP review. Too wide, and CBP has to manually separate the IEEPA entries from the non-IEEPA entries. Too narrow, and you’re leaving money behind.
Stale liquidation data. Entry statuses change over time. Data pulled in January 2026 may show entries as unliquidated that have since liquidated. If you file a Post-Summary Correction on an entry that has already liquidated, the PSC will be rejected and you’ll need to file a protest instead — assuming the 180-day window hasn’t closed in the meantime. Always refresh your data within 2-4 weeks of filing.
Duty amount discrepancies. If the IEEPA duty amounts in your claim don’t match what CBP has on file — because of rounding differences, amended entry summaries, or prior adjustments — CBP flags the claim for manual review. Manual review adds weeks or months to processing.
The consequences
Incomplete data doesn’t just delay your claim — it can cascade into missed deadlines. If you submit an incomplete CAPE declaration and have to refile, you lose your queue position. If a PSC is rejected because the entry already liquidated, you’ve burned time that should have been spent filing a protest. If duty amounts don’t reconcile, CBP holds the entire claim while they investigate the discrepancy — even if the issue only affects a handful of entries.
How to avoid it
Consolidate data from every customs broker who filed entries on your behalf during the IEEPA period. Verify that your HTS code filter captures both 9903.01 and 9903.02 headings — and excludes 9903.88 (Section 301) and 9903.80 (Section 232). Refresh your data no more than 2-4 weeks before filing. Cross-check duty amounts against your company’s internal AP records for the corresponding broker invoices.
If your data set exceeds 200 entry lines, consider having it professionally validated before submission. A free Impact Assessment includes this validation step — it’s one of the primary deliverables.
Mistake 3: Waiting for CAPE Instead of Filing Protests Now
This is the mistake born of good intentions and bad timing. You hear that CBP is building the CAPE (Centralized Adjustment and Processing Entity) system to handle IEEPA refunds efficiently. You think: “Great, I’ll wait for CAPE and file everything through one system.” And in the meantime, protest deadlines are silently expiring on your liquidated entries.
What goes wrong
CAPE is CBP’s new centralized system for processing IEEPA tariff refund claims. It’s expected to launch in mid-April 2026 and will handle Post-Summary Corrections, mass adjustments, and potentially new claim types. For unliquidated entries, CAPE will likely be the most efficient filing path.
But CAPE does not extend, suspend, or replace the 180-day protest deadline on liquidated entries. The protest window runs under 19 U.S.C. Section 1514 — a statute that predates CAPE by decades. If an entry was liquidated on December 15, 2025, the protest deadline is June 13, 2026. Whether CAPE is live, delayed, partially functional, or fully operational on that date is irrelevant.
We’re seeing importers — and even some customs brokers — adopt a “wait and see” approach to CAPE, treating it as a one-stop solution that will handle everything. It won’t. CAPE is a processing system, not a deadline extension.
The consequences
Every liquidated entry that passes its 180-day window without a protest filing loses its administrative remedy. The cost of waiting isn’t just queue position and time value — it’s the permanent loss of the simplest, cheapest recovery path for those entries.
Consider a mid-size importer with 300 IEEPA entries. If 100 of them were liquidated between December 2025 and February 2026, the protest deadlines on those entries fall between June and August 2026. Waiting for CAPE (projected mid-April launch) leaves only 2-4 months to file protests after CAPE goes live — assuming CAPE handles protests at all in its initial release. That’s a dangerously thin margin for 100 entries.
How to avoid it
File protests now on every liquidated entry within the 180-day window. Use your customs broker. Use the existing ACE protest filing process. Don’t wait for CAPE.
You can always file through CAPE later for your unliquidated entries and for any additional processing that CAPE enables. But protests must be filed within the statutory window regardless of what other systems become available. The two paths — CAPE for unliquidated entries, protests for liquidated entries — are complementary, not sequential.
For a comprehensive comparison of all recovery paths and when to use each one, see our guide.
Mistake 4: Not Separating IEEPA Duties From Other Tariff Programs
This sample entry shows why refund estimates break when importers lump IEEPA, Section 301, and standard duties into one number. The refundable slice is the IEEPA line, not the full duty stack.
This mistake is technical, but it’s one of the most frequent causes of CBP processing delays. And it stems from a simple misunderstanding about what the Supreme Court ruling actually covers.
What goes wrong
The Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump decision struck down tariffs imposed under IEEPA — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. It did not strike down tariffs imposed under other legal authorities. But many importers — and some customs brokers — submit claims that lump IEEPA duties together with Section 301 duties, Section 232 duties, or standard MFN duties.
Here’s what a typical entry looks like for a China-origin product:
| Duty Type | HTS Code | Amount | Refundable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| MFN (standard) | 8471.30.0100 | $4,200 | No |
| Section 301 | 9903.88.15 | $12,600 | No |
| IEEPA | 9903.01.25 | $25,200 | Yes |
| Total duties | — | $42,000 | — |
If you submit a claim for $42,000 on this entry, CBP has to separate the IEEPA component from the rest. That separation requires manual review. Manual review means your claim sits in a queue behind claims that were submitted cleanly with only the IEEPA component identified.
The consequences
Claims with commingled duty types consistently experience 3-6 months of additional processing time compared to clean, IEEPA-only claims. In severe cases — where the importer doesn’t provide any HTS-level breakdown — CBP may reject the claim entirely and require a resubmission with proper documentation.
For importers with hundreds of entries, commingling also makes it impossible to accurately calculate your refund amount. If you don’t know which portion of each entry’s duties is IEEPA-specific, you can’t project your total recovery, you can’t make informed decisions about immediate capital vs. government filing, and you can’t verify that CBP’s eventual refund amount matches what you’re owed.
How to avoid it
When pulling your ES-003 data, filter at the HTS line level — not the entry level. Identify every line containing 9903.01 or 9903.02 codes. Sum only those line amounts. Present your claim with the IEEPA-specific amounts clearly broken out by entry.
If you’re working with a customs broker, ask them specifically to separate IEEPA duties from other duty programs in the data they provide. Some brokers provide total-duty summaries by default, which doesn’t give you the granularity you need. Request a line-level breakdown.
For China-origin entries, which often carry three or more layered tariff programs on a single entry, this separation is especially critical. The China-specific tariff refund guide provides detailed guidance on parsing multi-program entries.
Get your free Impact Assessment →
Mistake 5: Not Engaging Your Customs Broker Early Enough
Your customs broker is the operational backbone of your refund claim. They have the ACE access, the filing capabilities, and the institutional knowledge of your import history. But if you don’t engage them until the last minute, you’re creating bottlenecks that delay your entire recovery.
What goes wrong
Customs brokers are currently managing an unprecedented volume of IEEPA-related requests from all of their clients simultaneously. A broker with 500 importer clients is fielding data requests, protest filings, PSC submissions, and CAPE preparation inquiries from dozens or hundreds of those clients at the same time.
When you wait until two weeks before a protest deadline to contact your broker, you’re competing for their attention with every other client who also waited until the last minute. Your broker may need 3-5 business days just to pull the ES-003 data, another 2-3 days to validate it, and another 2-3 days to prepare and file the protests. That’s 7-11 business days under ideal conditions — and conditions right now are far from ideal.
Some importers compound this problem by not providing their brokers with clear instructions. Asking your broker to “look into IEEPA refunds” is vague. Asking them to “pull ES-003 data for all entries between February 4, 2025, and February 24, 2026, with HTS codes 9903.01 and 9903.02, including liquidation dates and status” is specific and actionable.
The consequences
Late broker engagement creates a domino effect:
- Data delays mean you can’t calculate your exposure accurately
- Exposure uncertainty means you can’t choose the right recovery path
- Path uncertainty means you can’t file on time
- Late filing means you either miss protest deadlines or join the CAPE queue behind importers who prepared months earlier
The CAPE queue position advantage goes to importers who had their data validated and formatted before the system launched. If your broker is still pulling your data when CAPE goes live, you’re already behind.
How to avoid it
Contact your customs broker today. Provide specific, written instructions for the data you need. Set clear deadlines for data delivery. If your broker is overwhelmed and can’t meet your timeline, escalate — or engage a secondary resource to supplement.
Here’s a template for the initial broker request:
“Please pull our ES-003 Entry Summary report from ACE for all entries with an entry date between February 4, 2025, and February 24, 2026. Filter for HTS codes beginning with 9903.01 and 9903.02. Include entry number, entry date, HTS code, duty amount, liquidation date, and liquidation status. We need this data within [X] business days to prepare our IEEPA tariff refund filing.”
If you have multiple brokers, send this request to each one. Then consolidate the data into a single analysis.
For importers whose brokers are unresponsive or lack capacity, a free Impact Assessment can supplement broker data with independent analysis, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
The Compounding Effect: When Mistakes Stack
These five mistakes don’t exist in isolation. They compound. An importer who makes Mistake 5 (late broker engagement) is more likely to make Mistake 2 (incomplete data), which leads to Mistake 4 (commingled duty types), which creates processing delays that bump up against Mistake 1 (protest deadlines). Mistake 3 (waiting for CAPE) amplifies all four by burning calendar time that could have been spent preventing the other errors.
The importers who recover fastest are the ones who:
- Engaged their broker in February or March 2026
- Pulled complete, validated ACE data across all brokers
- Filed protective protests on every liquidated entry within the window
- Separated IEEPA duties from other tariff programs at the line level
- Prepared CAPE-ready data before the system launched
These importers will be in the first processing wave. They’ll have the best queue position. They’ll receive refunds while others are still compiling data.
The importers who wait — who assume CAPE will solve everything, who don’t check their protest deadlines, who send vague requests to overwhelmed brokers — will join the back of a line that may be 18-36 months long. The cost of that delay is quantifiable, and for importers with significant exposure, it’s substantial.
A Quick Self-Audit
Before you move forward with any filing, check yourself against these five items:
| Question | If No, You Have a Problem |
|---|---|
| Have you identified every liquidated entry’s 180-day protest deadline? | Mistake 1 — file protective protests immediately |
| Is your ACE data from all brokers consolidated and current (within 2-4 weeks)? | Mistake 2 — request fresh data now |
| Have you filed protests on liquidated entries (not waiting for CAPE)? | Mistake 3 — file protests in parallel with CAPE prep |
| Are IEEPA duties separated from Section 301, 232, and MFN duties at the line level? | Mistake 4 — refilter your data before submission |
| Has your customs broker confirmed capacity and timeline for your filings? | Mistake 5 — send specific instructions today |
If you answered “no” to even one of these questions, you have a correctable issue that, left unaddressed, will delay your refund. The IEEPA tariff refund timeline shows what’s coming next in the process — and every milestone is easier to hit when you’ve avoided these five mistakes.
The Bottom Line
IEEPA tariff refunds are not automatic. The legal right to a refund is established, but the operational process of actually receiving money requires accurate data, timely filings, and strategic path selection. These five mistakes are the most common obstacles between importers and their refunds — and every one of them is avoidable with preparation.
If you’re not sure whether any of these issues apply to your situation, find out before they cost you time or money.
