If you run a business that imports goods into the United States, your phone has probably been ringing off the hook. Your LinkedIn DMs and email inbox are probably full too — companies you've never heard of, all telling you it's urgent, all asking for your trust to file and recover your tariff refund. This guide covers everything you need to know before you respond to any of them.
Before you respond to any of the calls, DMs, or emails, there are a few important things you need to understand first — things that could save your tariff refund claim from being completely nullified, which can easily happen with recovery agents who don't know what they're doing.
A common problem we're seeing right now is that many US importers are relying on inexperienced brokers, or law firms with no real experience in customs and trade law, only to see their refund claims completely and irreversibly botched. This happens because of things most callers are not telling you — and if you find this out after they've already filed your claim, it may be too late to fix it.
In February 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that the IEEPA tariffs were unconstitutional — but only after the government had already collected approximately $166 billion in tariffs, from more than 330,000 US importers, across 53 million customs entries. As per that court order, that money is being refunded right now, but only to businesses that file a claim.
That ruling created an overnight industry of recovery services. Most are legitimate but limited: they can file through CBP's CAPE portal for straightforward entries, but they cannot handle the finally-liquidated entries that require court litigation, and they cannot protect your entry-history review under attorney-client privilege.
CBP itself issued an official warning in May 2026 about the volume of unsolicited outreach. They specifically flagged scammers using email, phone calls, and social media to target importers — and their advice was direct: treat any external website or unknown party offering to process your refund with caution. Some of it is outright fraud. Some of it is fully legitimate. And the part that matters most — most of it sits somewhere in between, in a grey area most importers have no way to evaluate on their own.
The moment the Supreme Court's tariff refund judgement was passed down, and CBP launched its CAPE refund system, an already-active market of import brokers, law firms, and recovery services ramped up their outreach — including many new players who appeared overnight, all trying to cash in on your refund in exchange for large up-front and back-end fees they're hoping they can get you to pay, even if you don't ever get your refund.
CBP's own warning makes the point directly: it isn't simply a case of most of it being a scam, nor is most of it fine and above-board. Most of the sudden tariff recovery outreach sits in the murky middle — a legally grey area that's difficult for most businesses to navigate on short notice. That's actually the harder problem, because the grey area is exactly where bad actors can most easily hide, hoping you're too confused by the complexity to know for sure that you can't trust them.
Not only that, but many recovery agents who are entirely legitimate are also limited in what they can actually do to secure the full extent of the refund you may be owed. They can file through CBP's CAPE portal for straightforward entries, but they cannot handle the finally-liquidated entries that require court litigation, nor can they protect your import entry history from review under attorney-client privilege. This may not sound like a big deal — but it potentially could be, and you wouldn't know until it's too late.
It is not in their best interests to fully inform you of everything that could go wrong if you file your claim through the wrong recovery agent. This predatory behavior is often concealed by creating a sense of urgency — "act now," "limited time," "sign today" — when the real reason for the rush is to get you to commit before you've had time to ask the questions that would expose the gaps in what they can actually do to secure your full refund.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: with an inexperienced recovery agent, your claim can become their learning curve if they don't have years of experience in US customs and trade law. If they make mistakes, you absorb the consequences. That could mean simply not receiving the full potential of your refund — which often requires an attorney to fight for in court, depending on the complexity of your claim — and in the worst case, it could mean your claim being denied with no recourse to file again.
Because a tariff refund claim is a one-shot affair that generally cannot be refiled if handled badly, you never want to be in a position where your recovery agent is using your claim as a guinea pig. If they're learning the process on the fly, it could cost you your refund — but not them.
This isn't hypothetical. The Employee Retention Tax Credit went through the identical dynamic a few years ago — a large government refund pool, an overnight industry of recovery promoters, and a wave of businesses that moved fast with the wrong provider and ended up with rejected claims, IRS scrutiny, or money left on the table permanently. Many of those promoters are now under IRS investigation. IEEPA refunds involve significantly more money than ERTC ever did. The pattern is repeating itself, on a bigger scale.
Some of those calls might have come from the customs broker you've already been working with for years. A half-decent broker probably can file a CAPE Declaration on your behalf — for straightforward entries, they have the technical ability to do this, and for some importers that may be entirely adequate. But there are three crucial things a broker cannot do.
A meaningful share of IEEPA-affected entries are finally liquidated (roughly 7% population-wide, though individual importers with older entries may have a higher share), meaning the protest window has closed and CAPE simply cannot process them. The only path left for refund claims on those entries is litigation, and that requires a licensed customs attorney admitted to the Court of International Trade. Brokers — even good ones — are not attorneys, and therefore cannot take this legal action on your behalf.
If a broker goes through your past entries and finds something misclassified — such as goods filed under the wrong tariff code, which is more common than most importers realize — that conversation is legally discoverable, meaning a CBP audit can access it. The same review, if done by a customs and trade attorney, is privileged and therefore legally protected. This distinction matters enormously if your import entry history has any complexity at all.
There's an active wave of litigation targeting companies that passed IEEPA tariff costs on to their customers and are now also claiming a refund. A broker has no way to assess that risk for you, but an attorney can — and under privilege, meaning you're legally protected from day one.
None of this means you should not file your tariff refund claim through your trusted import broker. You just need to understand the legal limits of their ability and authority, and know when you may need more legal protection, capability, and experience in dealing with US customs and trade law — before you file your claim. This is nothing against import brokers, but you need to be aware of these facts first.
Here's the one thing almost nobody calling you is explaining properly: there isn't one way to get your refund — there are three. And which one applies to your business depends on the status of each individual shipment you've made, not your business as a whole. Most of the people contacting you only know about one of the three. That's not necessarily dishonest. It's just incomplete. And incomplete information, on something this size, is its own kind of risk.
Applies in a specific window — from the moment an entry is unliquidated, up to 80 days after it liquidates. Fast, portal-based, and currently covers roughly 63% of all IEEPA-affected entries. If a broker is offering to help you, this is almost certainly the only pathway they mean. That 63% figure is also shrinking daily, as more entries age past the window.
A formal protest filed directly with CBP. Once the CAPE window closes, you have until day 180 after liquidation to use this route. It's slower — CBP has no deadline to process a protest, so this can take a year or longer — but it's real, and many importers will end up filing protests simply because nobody engaged them early enough to use CAPE.
The only path left once the 180-day deadline has passed. This cannot be undertaken by an import broker and cannot be filed through a portal — it can only be done through a licensed attorney admitted to the Court of International Trade, and only within two years of liquidation. Which is exactly why 2026 is a crucial watershed year for tariff refund claims, as time runs out on all three pathways for the earliest-affected entries.
So while there are three pathways to filing your tariff refund claim, the 180-day deadline is a real, hard cutoff. Once those 180 days pass, for most entries, the only way left is litigation. Knowing which path applies to every single import shipment on your books is the entire game — and the more complex it gets, the more you may need a registered attorney.
What makes all of this difficult to manage is that every single import entry has its own clock, running independently. A shipment that arrived in March 2025 is on a completely different liquidation timeline than one that arrived in October. If nobody is tracking that, entry by entry, deadlines pass silently — and nothing announces that they've passed.
There's also a cost to waiting that most importers don't think about. Interest only accrues on claims that have been filed. Statutory interest on these refunds runs at roughly six to seven percent, compounding from the date you originally paid the tariff. If your claim isn't filed yet, you're not simply waiting in line — you're forfeiting interest you're legally entitled to, every single day it sits unfiled.
A newer development worth knowing: CBP has now confirmed a real rollout timeline beyond Phase 1. Phase 2 — covering reconciliation-flagged entries specifically — launches June 29, 2026. Phase 3, covering finally liquidated entries, is targeted for late July 2026 — but only for importers who have already filed suit at the Court of International Trade. In other words, filing a CIT lawsuit isn't just a fallback option anymore. For many importers, it's about to become the actual key that unlocks the next stage of the refund system itself.
Here's a practical test you can use right now, on anyone who has already contacted you, or the next person that calls asking to file your tariff refund claim for you.
1. Can you file litigation at the CIT for finally-liquidated import entries, or only through CAPE?
If the answer is CAPE only, they cannot recover the finally-liquidated entries that need court action.
2. Will my entry history be protected from government review by attorney-client privilege?
If the answer is no, you're taking on real compliance risk every time they look at your data.
3. What happens if my CAPE Declaration has an error — can we refile, or is that entry gone?
A competent operator will be upfront. One that isn't will tell you not to worry about it.
4. Are you a licensed customs and trade attorney, admitted to the Court of International Trade?
This is a very important and relevant legal credential when dealing with CBP — but without it, tariff refund recovery agents cannot do the full scope of what most complex claims require.
Most of the people calling you cannot answer question one, two, or four. That alone tells you most of what you need to know.
No upfront cost. The process is handled by experienced US legal teams.
Check My EligibilityLet's bring this all together in a quick recap: there isn't just one refund process — there are three. Most of the recovery agents contacting you only know about CAPE, which is the fastest but also the most limited option. The deadlines on each of the refund-recovery pathways all run independently of each other, per entry, whether or not anyone is actually watching them. And the person or company offering to help you may be completely well-intentioned, but still only capable of recovering a fraction of what you're actually owed.
That's not a reason to panic. It's a reason to get one proper, complete assessment of your entire import history — every entry, every pathway, every deadline — before you commit to anyone.
If you imported goods subject to IEEPA tariffs between February 2025 and February 2026, you likely have a legitimate claim. Filing windows are closing — the first step is an independent assessment of your complete import history, not just the entries that happen to be easiest to process, so you can know now if an attorney is needed to recover your full tariff refund.
If you've already filed — whether the filing was handled well or not — there's also a way to get a cash advance on your refund within just 5–10 business days, rather than waiting months or years.
Why are so many companies suddenly contacting me about tariff refunds?
The $166 billion IEEPA refund pool created a large market of recovery services virtually overnight. Most are legitimate but limited in scope. Some are fraudulent. CBP issued an official scam warning in May 2026, specifically because of the volume of unsolicited outreach targeting importers.
Is there really more than one way to recover my refund?
Yes. CAPE covers roughly 63% of entries through CBP's portal, but a formal Protest and Court of International Trade litigation are both separate, real pathways for the entries CAPE doesn't reach. Which pathway applies depends on each individual shipment's liquidation status, not your business as a whole.
Can my customs broker file my IEEPA tariff refund?
Yes, for CAPE Phase 1 and Phase 2 entries. However, brokers cannot file CIT litigation for finally-liquidated entries (roughly 7% of all IEEPA entries population-wide), cannot protect your HTS review under attorney-client privilege, and cannot evaluate class action exposure. An attorney is required for those elements.
Is CAPE filing one-shot? What happens if there is an error?
Yes. A rejected CAPE Declaration cannot simply be resubmitted in most cases. Errors resulting in rejection may permanently forfeit the refund for those entries.
What happens if I wait and don't file right away?
Two costs compound the longer a claim sits unfiled: statutory interest (roughly 6–7%, compounding from the date the tariff was paid) only accrues on claims that have been filed, and the 180-day protest deadline and two-year CIT litigation deadline both keep running regardless of when you decide to act.
How do I know if a tariff refund company is legitimate?
Ask whether they can handle CIT litigation, whether their review is covered by attorney-client privilege, and whether they are licensed customs attorneys admitted to the Court of International Trade.
What is the CAPE portal?
CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries) is CBP's digital refund system launched April 20, 2026. It allows Importers of Record and licensed customs brokers to submit IEEPA refund declarations through the ACE Secure Data Portal.