On March 31, the US Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) said it was making significant progress in establishing "efficient" tax refund procedures for revenues identified as illegal. However, the new system is expected to take up to 45 days to review and process each tax refund request.
In the file sent to the US International Trade Court, CBP official Brandon Lord said that the tax refund request receiving gateway along with the review and payment system is currently about 60-85% complete. Although the official time to open the file has not been announced, this agency previously set a target to complete it within 45 days.
According to the plan, the system will be deployed in stages. In the initial stage, CBP prioritizes handling shipments that have been finalized within the last 80 days, as well as cases that are being temporarily suspended, extended or considered for customs clearance status. Declarations related to warehouse goods and goods withdrawn from warehouses will also be accepted from the first phase.
CBP said that there are currently about 26,664 importers completing procedures to receive electronic tax refunds, equivalent to 78% of taxable or deposited shipments under the International Emergency Economic Power Act (IEEPA), with a total value of up to 120 billion USD.
This move comes after the US Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump's large-scale global counterpart tariff package last month, according to IEEPA.
According to court documents, more than 330,000 importers have paid these taxes for about 53 million shipments since February 2025. However, the Supreme Court did not provide specific guidance on refunds, but transferred this responsibility to the US International Trade Court for handling.
In fact, many large businesses such as FedEx have sued CBP to protect their right to tax refunds. Previously, President Donald Trump had stated that the refund process could take up to 5 years, raising concerns in the business community, especially small importers - units that are concerned that the cost of pursuing tax refunds may exceed the amount refunded.
Earlier this month, Judge Richard Eaton of the International Commercial Court requested CBP to use the existing system to begin returning. However, this agency proposed building a new process, allowing dossiers to be received as early as next month without forcing businesses to sue, in order to reduce procedures and speed up processing progress.
However, with a huge volume of dossiers and a return value of up to 166 billion USD, observers believe that this process will still face many technical and legal challenges in the coming time.
