The U.S. President Donald Trump administration has refunded about $100 billion of the tariff revenue it collected under the 2025 “Liberation Day” duties, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told a federal court this week. The refunds follow a Supreme Court ruling that struck down the tariffs as illegal, and a subsequent court order requiring the money to be returned. The payout covers roughly 60% of the $165 billion originally collected.
What Were the “Liberation Day” Tariffs?
On April 2, 2025, a date the White House branded “Liberation Day,” President Trump imposed sweeping new import duties on nearly every U.S. trading partner. The administration relied on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a law normally used for sanctions, to justify the tariffs without congressional approval. Businesses and several states quickly sued, arguing the president had exceeded his authority.
Research published in the Journal of International Economics modeled the long-term effects of the policy. The study found that if trading partners did not retaliate, the tariffs could shrink the U.S. trade deficit and modestly improve national welfare, especially if tariff revenue offset income taxes. But the researchers also found that retaliation from other countries reversed those gains and produced a net loss for the U.S. economy overall.
How the Courts Ordered the Refunds
In February 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that the administration had exceeded its authority in imposing the IEEPA tariffs. As PaySpace Magazine Global previously reported, a federal court then ordered the administration to begin returning more than $130 billion in collected duties, rejecting a government request to pause the process while it pursued an appeal. More than 2,000 lawsuits followed from companies including Costco, FedEx, and Pandora Jewelry, all seeking reimbursement for tariffs they had paid.
How the CAPE Refund System Works
To process the refunds, CBP built a new electronic system called CAPE — the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries. As of July 31, CAPE had received more than 250,000 refund declarations covering more than 25 million import entries. Nearly $129 billion in refunds has been accepted into the system for processing, and about $100 billion of that has already been certified and sent to the Treasury Department for disbursement.
The system works in phases, starting with import entries that were not yet finalized, or “liquidated,” at the time of the ruling, before moving to older, already-finalized entries.
Why Small Businesses Are Largely Excluded
CAPE only allows the importer of record, i.e. the business that formally declared the goods and paid the duty at the border, to file a refund claim. That rule means the money goes to whichever company handled customs paperwork, not necessarily the business that ultimately absorbed the cost. Large importers with in-house trade compliance teams, like Apple and Amazon, have already disclosed billions of dollars in refunds. Many small businesses that paid tariffs indirectly, through a supplier or customs broker, have no direct claim in the system and often lack the resources to pursue one.
New Tariffs, New Legal Fights
Even as it processes these refunds, the administration has begun imposing new tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on more than 60 economies, this time citing separate legal authority from the law the Supreme Court rejected. At least three lawsuits are already challenging the new duties.
What It Means for Trade Finance
For businesses that import goods, the refund process has direct working-capital implications. Because only the importer of record can claim a refund, and processing still takes time even for eligible claims, companies further down the supply chain may need bridge financing to smooth out cash flow while they wait to see if any of the tariff cost gets passed back to them. That gap is opening space for trade-finance and B2B payments providers to offer refund-advance or working-capital products aimed specifically at importers and their suppliers navigating the CAPE process.
