By: Brian Walczyk, Compliance Manager, TradeInsights, LCB, CCS

Today, March 12, US CBP issued a progress update to the CIT on their development of new capability within ACE to handle IEEPA refunds.

The Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) functionality in ACE aims to streamline the processing of refunds related to IEEPA tariffs collected from February 2025 to February 2026.

CAPE is designed with four integrated components:

• Claim Portal
• Mass Processing
• Review and Liquidation/Reliquidation
• Refund

The current development aims to have the Importer or Broker submit a list of data elements to CAPE via a CSV file, which will run through validation steps before ACE mass updates the entry to remove IEEPA duties. There will be a CBP validation step, as needed, between the removal of IEEPA duties and the liquidation/reliquidation process. Once all steps are complete it would send the information for processing the refund, for which the Importer will need an ACE account with ACE ACH Refund enabled.

CBP does expect a phased development approach to be necessary as certain entries will not be immediately available for IEEPA refund processing through CAPE upon its launch.

Judge Eaton, who is presiding over the case at the CIT, has continued his suspension of his earlier order – now requiring US CBP to provide another progress update on March 19, 2026.

With the case now before the CIT we will continue to watch for developments on the exact mechanisms the court will deem appropriate for seeking IEEPA tariff refunds.

Please contact your V. Alexander account team, or you may also contact our Trade Compliance team at tradeinsights@valexander.com with any questions, and you can always follow us on our website www.valexander.com for updates on this and other topics.