CBP's CAPE Portal Processes Over 75,000 Tariff Refund Requests Since April, 15% Rejected

U.S. U.S. businesses and other importers since launching its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries tariff refund system, known as CAPE, on April 20, 2026.

Roughly 15% of those requests have been rejected, according to the agency. U.S. Customs and Border Protection stated in a filing with the Court of International Trade on April 29, 2026.

The CAPE system was launched to comply with an order following the Supreme Court's February 2026 ruling that struck down emergency levies imposed by President Trump. Businesses may only seek refunds for tariffs imposed by the Trump administration under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

In the first phase of the refund process, CAPE is only accepting applications for tariffs that have been finalized by CBP or estimated duties that can still be estimated.

CAPE experienced glitches when it launched on April 20, 2026. The functionality was not available for use by importers and their brokers for an 18-minute period that day, when CBP paused the ability to submit declarations to reconfigure resources and optimize processing, Lord said in the filing. Despite these issues, the portal is running as intended, CBS News reported.

Nick Richards, a partner at law firm Greenspoon Marder who has advised clients seeking tariff refunds, told CBS News that some businesses are likely making errors in their claims submissions. 'There are parameters, and I would imagine some of the submissions are outside of that scope,' Richards said.

He added that he was amazed at the speed with which Customs put up the portal and praised the agency for doing an amazing job rolling it out.

Beth Benike, co-founder of Busy Baby, a Minnesota-based maker of baby products, told CBS News that customs officials have not yet helped her resolve an issue with her importer account that has left her unable to submit a refund claim through CAPE. She said she gets an error that says her tax ID is linked to someone else's account and has spent hours on hold with federal officials.

'I wear all of the hats.

I have a lot to do and can't sit here for hours and hours trying to get through to fix an error on their end, when I've submitted tickets, gone through the process and done all the things I've been told to do,' Benike said. Benike is confident the government will refund her the roughly $50,000 it owes her for IEEPA duties Busy Baby has paid.

'I do think eventually I'll get refunded, once I set up my account, they approve and then wait 60 to 90 days,' she said.

She added that she is still looking at several months until she sees the money once she is able to submit.