U.S. Customs and Border Protection is now on track to return roughly $85 billion of the approximately $166 billion it collected under tariffs the Supreme Court has ruled unlawful — and about $20.6 billion of that has already been certified, paid with interest, and transmitted to Treasury, according to a court filing dated May 26, 2026, and contemporaneous trade reporting (Supply Chain Dive; Manufacturing Dive). For finance teams that wrote off these duties as a sunk cost of doing business, that is real cash coming back onto the balance sheet.
But the headline number hides a fight over who gets paid. In a May 14, 2026 filing in the Court of International Trade, the Justice Department drew a hard line: importers whose shipments would have qualified for the suspended de minimis ($800) exemption should not get the same refund treatment as everyone else (Supply Chain Dive). For e-commerce sellers, aftermarket parts distributors, and anyone running on high-volume, low-value cross-border flows, that argument — if it holds — carves a hole in the refund pool exactly where it would matter most.
How the refund machine works
The refunds run through CBP's Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) portal, which launched April 20, 2026 (Supply Chain Dive; CBP, IEEPA Duty Refunds). Importers submit refund files; CBP runs them through initial checks and entry-level validations before duties are removed, certified, and — once interest is calculated — sent to Treasury for disbursement. "Accepted" is not the same as "paid": the ~$85 billion figure reflects refunds on track through the portal, while the ~$20.6 billion reflects what had been certified with interest and completed as of May 22, 2026.
The throughput numbers show where the friction is. As of May 22, 2026, CBP reported 157,402 refund files submitted via CAPE, of which 108,760 passed initial checks. At the line level, more than 15.85 million entries had been accepted for duty removal, while more than 3.48 million entries failed entry-level validations (Supply Chain Dive). The common rejection reasons are procedural, not philosophical: entries falling outside CBP's 90-day reliquidation authority, duplicate submissions, and entries that have been "finally liquidated," which CBP currently cannot process. The practical takeaway for trade-compliance teams is that timing and entry status — not the merits of the underlying claim — are what knock filings out, so reconciling entry-by-entry liquidation status before submitting is the difference between cash recovered and cash stuck.
The numbers in context
Set the figures side by side: CBP estimates roughly $166 billion was paid under the invalidated tariffs, is on track to refund more than half (~$85 billion), and had actually paid out ~$20.6 billion with interest as of late May (Business Standard). The gap between $166 billion collected and ~$85 billion refundable is itself a story — a meaningful share of collected duties sits in categories that either fall outside the ruling or are caught in procedural and legal exclusions, including the contested de minimis question below.
The legal backdrop
On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources v. Trump (consolidated with V.O.S. Selections) that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize tariffs, deeming the duties invalid ab initio — void from the start. Critically, the Court did not decide remedies, leaving the question of who gets refunded, and how, to the agencies and lower courts (Covington & Burling).
Four days later, the administration pivoted. Effective 12:00 a.m. ET on February 24, 2026, the IEEPA tariffs were terminated and replaced with a Section 122 across-the-board tariff of 10%, authorized for 150 days — running through approximately July 24, 2026 (National Law Review; Covington & Burling). The Section 122 surcharge is a replacement duty, not a refundable one — a distinction that matters enormously for landed-cost models, because the cash coming back under IEEPA refunds is partly offset by a new, currently valid charge on the same flows.
The de minimis fight
Duty-free de minimis treatment for shipments under $800 (19 U.S.C. § 1321(a)(2)(C)) was suspended in 2025, and a February 20, 2026 executive order continued the suspension. The result: low-value goods that once entered free are now subject to the Section 122 duty rather than passing through duty-free (Covington & Burling).
That suspension is now being litigated. In Axle of Dearborn, Inc. (doing business as Detroit Axle) v. Department of Commerce, the Court of International Trade lifted a stay, allowing the challenge to the de minimis ban to proceed (Supply Chain Dive). Detroit Axle is seeking roughly $44 million in refunds — about $9 million tied to the now-defunct IEEPA tariffs and about $35 million from other tariff categories (Supply Chain Dive).
The Justice Department's defense is built on a narrow reading of the Supreme Court's decision. In its May 14, 2026 filing, DOJ argued that the SCOTUS ruling addressed IEEPA's tariff authority and should not be stretched to revive the de minimis exemption; that suspending de minimis is not itself a tariff-setting power; that Detroit Axle voluntarily became the importer of record; and that the company's Mexican auto parts were ineligible on separate grounds tied to NHTSA requirements (Supply Chain Dive; InsideTrade). The government's core position is that refund claims premised on reviving de minimis go beyond what the Court actually held and would unduly limit presidential trade powers.
Why the contested pool is hard to size
The de minimis question is economically concentrated in exactly the importers that are hardest to quantify in aggregate: high-volume, low-value flows like e-commerce and aftermarket parts. These businesses built their landed-cost assumptions around duty-free entry under $800, so the suspension hit their margins directly — and a refund win or loss swings their recovered cash by a wide band. Detroit Axle's split of its own claim (~$9 million IEEPA versus ~$35 million from other categories) is a useful illustration of how, for these importers, the refundable IEEPA slice can be the smaller part of total tariff exposure.
Working-capital implications for operators
For finance and treasury teams, this is fundamentally a working-capital and timing story, not a policy abstraction:
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Re-accruing for contested duties. Refunds that are "accepted" but not yet certified, and any duties tied to de minimis claims still in litigation, should be treated as contingent rather than booked as certain recoveries until the CIT and CBP processing resolve.
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Landed-cost model updates. The IEEPA refund is partly offset by the Section 122 10% surcharge now in force on the same imports — net recovery, not gross, is the number that belongs in the model.
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Drawback interactions. Where duty drawback strategies overlap with refundable IEEPA entries, teams should reconcile the two so the same duty is not double-counted or double-claimed.
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Timing against the Section 122 sunset. The 10% surcharge is authorized for 150 days, through roughly July 24, 2026; cash-recovery and sourcing decisions should be planned against that horizon, since the replacement-duty landscape may shift again at expiry.
Reshoring math vs. import reliance
The de minimis case also nudges the longer-run sourcing calculus. If the plaintiffs win and de minimis-eligible shipments become refundable, import-dependent supply chains recover more cash and the relative cost of staying on imports falls. If DOJ prevails, low-value importers absorb more of the duty burden permanently, modestly tilting the math toward domestic or nearshore sourcing for the goods most exposed. Either way, the Section 122 surcharge's temporary nature means operators are making capital and sourcing decisions against a duty regime that is explicitly time-boxed — a poor foundation for permanent capex commitments without scenario planning.
Operator checklist: what to watch
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Entry status before filing. Confirm entries are within CBP's 90-day reliquidation authority and not "finally liquidated" before submitting through CAPE — those are the top procedural rejection drivers.
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Avoid duplicates. Duplicate submissions are a named rejection reason; reconcile filings across brokers and internal teams.
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The CIT docket. Track Axle of Dearborn v. Department of Commerce for the de minimis ruling that defines whether low-value shipments rejoin the refund pool.
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The Section 122 sunset (~July 24, 2026). Plan cash-recovery timing and sourcing reviews around the 150-day authorization window.
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Accrual guidance. Keep contested de minimis and not-yet-certified refunds as contingent assets, not booked recoveries, until resolution.
Related reading
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CBP Has Cleared $35.46B in Refunds for the Tariffs SCOTUS Killed
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The U.S. Trade Chief Just Sequenced Chip Tariffs — Memory and Mature Nodes Are the Exposed Surface
Sources
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CBP raises accepted tariff refunds to $85B — Supply Chain Dive
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Approx $20.6 billion of tariff refunds on way to importers: US govt — Business Standard
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CBP raises accepted tariff refunds to $85B — Manufacturing Dive
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Full tariff refunds for de minimis imports? US says no — Supply Chain Dive
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De minimis: Case aiming to revive exemption can proceed, court rules — Supply Chain Dive
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Justice urges narrow reading of IEEPA decision in de minimis lawsuit — InsideTrade
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IEEPA Tariffs Terminated, Replacement Section 122 Tariffs Take Effect — Covington & Burling LLP
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Post-SCOTUS Tariff Reset: Section 122 10% Surcharge Replaces IEEPA Duties — National Law Review