When Will I Get My IEEPA Tariff Refund? Realistic Timeline for 2026
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TL;DR – CBP says refunds typically arrive 60 to 90 days after your CAPE Declaration is accepted, not after you upload it. Validation before acceptance can take days. Unliquidated entries are liquidated 45 days after acceptance; already-liquidated entries are reliquidated the next business day. Money comes in batches by importer and liquidation date, so expect several payments. Extended or suspended entries pay only when they liquidate. For entries liquidated more than 80 days ago, there is no CAPE timeline unless you sued (Phase 3).
Why "60–90 Days" Is Misleading on Its Own
CBP's published timeline, 60 to 90 days after acceptance of your CAPE Declaration (CSMS #68340863), is accurate but incomplete. There are three clocks, and most summaries only mention the last one.
Here's the full sequence:
Clock 1: Validation. After you upload your CSV to the CAPE tab in ACE Portal, CBP validates the file format and then each entry number. In the first weeks of CAPE, importers reported this taking days to a few weeks before a declaration reached "Accepted." CBP has not published a time for this step.
Clock 2: Liquidation. Once your declaration is accepted, entries need to liquidate before a refund can be issued. For unliquidated entries, CBP targets liquidation within 45 days of acceptance. For entries that were already liquidated within the 80-day window, reliquidation typically happens the next business day after acceptance.
Clock 3: Payment. CBP nets any debts, then sends the ACH payment. CBP's 60 to 90 days is counted from acceptance and includes the liquidation step, so clocks 2 and 3 overlap. Clock 1 comes before them.
If you are on day 50 after acceptance with nothing in the bank, that is still normal.
A Realistic Sequence If You File Today
| Event | When |
|---|---|
| Declaration uploaded | Day 0 |
| Declaration accepted | Days to a few weeks later |
| Already-liquidated entries reliquidated | Next business day after acceptance |
| Unliquidated entries liquidated | 45 days after acceptance |
| ACH refund payment | Typically 60 to 90 days after acceptance |
This assumes a clean declaration with no entry-level errors, no outstanding CBP debts, and no extended or suspended entries. Each of those factors extends the timeline.
Older entries are on a different clock. Entries liquidated more than 80 days ago do not get a CAPE timeline at all unless you sued. Plaintiffs with a reliquidation order file in Phase 3, open since October 6, 2026, in rolling waves about every two weeks (Troutman, Oct 2, 2026). Importers who did not sue are in the class certified on October 8, 2026, which has no refund order and no schedule yet (Slip Op. 26-123).
What Makes the Timeline Longer
Extended, suspended, or "under review" entries. CAPE accepts these and calculates the refund at once, but they keep their liquidation status and pay only when they liquidate, with no predictable date (CSMS #68340863). If your declaration includes a mix of clean unliquidated entries and suspended entries, expect two separate payments at different times.
Outstanding CBP debts. Before sending your refund, CBP checks for unpaid debts, and the refund is the IEEPA duties minus any unpaid bills (CSMS #68340863). Your refund may be partially or fully absorbed before anything reaches your ACH account. CBP has not said it sends advance notice. Check for outstanding bills in ACE Portal before filing.
ACH not enrolled or wrong account. If ACH Refund enrollment isn't set up for the importer of record (or its Form 4811 party), CBP holds the refund. In CBP's October 6, 2026 progress report, refunds held for missing ACH information fell from about $1.3 billion to $1.1 billion (Baker Tilly). Rejected ACH payments show in REV-613 and go through CBP's Replacement Refund Instructions (CSMS #68315804). The money sits there until you fix it. See the ACH Setup Guide if you haven't confirmed your enrollment.
Warehouse entries. Since July 7, 2026, CAPE rejects warehouse Types 21 and 22; you file the withdrawals (Types 31, 32, 34, 38) instead, and the refund comes when the warehouse entry is liquidated or reliquidated (CSMS #69127837). Those refunds arrive later than the rest.
Validation errors on some entries. If your declaration has a mix of valid and invalid entries, CBP processes the valid ones and rejects the rest. The clean entries proceed on the normal timeline. Rejected entries need to be resubmitted on a new declaration and run through the full process again from the beginning.
How to Track Where Your Refund Is
Two ACE Portal reports serve different purposes here, and they're easy to confuse.
ES-022: CAPE Entry Summary Report. Links your declaration, entry and refund numbers, with principal and interest shown separately (CSMS #68536553). This is the source for the amount.
REV-603: Trade Refund Report. Shows each refund's Secondary Status: Sent to Treasury, Treasury Issued, Funds Diverted, or Check/ACH Returned. It stays empty until the refund goes to Treasury, which is not an error.
REV-615: CAPE Details Refunds Report. Builds on REV-603 with entry summary-level detail for CAPE declarations sent to Treasury (CSMS #68536553). It appears only after the Bulletin Notice of Liquidation.
ES-701: Courtesy Notice of Liquidation. Liquidation dates by entry. Use it to match a bank deposit to the entries that liquidated on that date.
All are in ACE Portal's Reports section. See REV-613, REV-603, REV-615.
About the Lump Sum
Your refund doesn't arrive as one line per entry. CBP consolidates refunds by IOR and liquidation date, then sends a single ACH payment per consolidation group. If your entries have different liquidation dates, you may receive multiple payments at different times rather than a single payment for everything.
Each payment covers entries that liquidated on the same date. The ACH transaction itself doesn't include a line-item breakdown. To understand which entries contributed to a specific payment, cross-reference the payment date against your ES-701 report: entries that reliquidated on that date are the ones included.
Interest on Your Refund
CBP adds statutory interest automatically: you don't need to request it. The rate is set each quarter. For Q3 and Q4 2026 it is 7% per year for noncorporate importers and 6% for corporations, the same as Q1 2026; Q2 2026 was 6% and 5% (91 FR 60141). Interest runs from the date you deposited the duty to the date of liquidation or reliquidation (19 U.S.C. § 1505(c)).
The interest component is meaningful for large refunds. A $100,000 duty payment made in May 2025 and reliquidated in July 2026 (14 months) at the noncorporate rates adds roughly $8,200 in interest. ES-022 shows the interest separately, and it can arrive as a separate ACH payment. CBP calculates it automatically.
For a full breakdown of how interest is calculated and what rates apply, see Interest on Your IEEPA Refund.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the 60–90 day clock start when I upload the file? No. It starts when CBP accepts the declaration, after validation is complete. Add the validation period (days to a few weeks in importers' reports; CBP has published no time) to the 60 to 90 days when estimating your actual payment date.
What does "Claim Status: Not Started" mean after I submit? Your declaration was received and a claim number was assigned, but CBP processing hasn't begun. "Not Started" is normal in the days after submission and doesn't mean something is wrong. Watch the Claims tab and download the Claim Details file when the status changes.
Will I get one payment or multiple? CBP consolidates by IOR (or its Form 4811 party) and liquidation date. If your entries liquidate on different dates, you get a separate ACH payment for each date group, and interest can come separately too. Most importers get several payments rather than one.
What if some of my entries get rejected? Rejected entries are excluded from the current declaration but can be resubmitted in a new one. The valid entries in your original filing proceed normally. Rejected entries restart the full timeline from the beginning when you refile.
Does CBP notify me before offsetting my refund against a debt? CBP has not said it sends one. CBP applies unpaid bills before issuing payment (CSMS #68340863). If the offset reduces your refund to zero, you may see no payment and no notice. Check for open bills in ACE Portal before filing.
Where does the interest show up? In ES-022, the CAPE Entry Summary Report, which shows principal and interest separately for each entry (CSMS #68536553).
Can I speed up the process? Filing earlier is the main lever. Beyond that, submitting a clean declaration avoids the need to refile rejected entries, and confirming ACH enrollment before filing prevents payment holds. CBP does not offer an expedite option.