The tariff refund money started moving, and now the government wants to stop the part of it that helps everyone who didn’t hire a lawyer. On Friday the Justice Department told the U.S. Court of International Trade it intends to appeal Judge Richard Eaton’s order that made all importers eligible for refunds on the IEEPA tariffs the Supreme Court already struck down. If that appeal lands the way most trade attorneys expect, the only businesses guaranteed their money back are the roughly thousand companies that filed their own lawsuits. Everyone else gets to wait.
I run Ecommerce Paradise and I’ve watched a lot of store owners assume this refund was automatic. It is not, and as of this weekend it is less automatic than it was a week ago. A June 9 hearing is now on the calendar, and the outcome decides whether 330,000 importers get a streamlined refund or get told to file paperwork one by one. This post breaks down exactly what the appeal does, who is actually protected, and what to do this week if you paid any of these duties.
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What Happened
On Friday, Justice Department lawyers told the Court of International Trade they plan to appeal what they called Judge Eaton’s “universal injunction.” That order, issued in March, held that the Supreme Court’s ruling entitled “all importers of record” to refunds, not just the businesses that sued. The DOJ’s position is narrow and blunt: “CBP has no authority to reliquidate or refund money without a court order,” per the filing reported by Fortune.
Until Friday, the system was actually working. Refunds reached the first bank accounts on May 12, about three weeks after importers could start filing through Customs and Border Protection’s online portal, known as CAPE. According to a CBP court filing, the agency had accepted $85 billion in claims for processing as of May 22, out of an estimated $166 billion owed, and had directed the Treasury to issue $20.6 billion of it. The U.S. government documents the program directly on CBP.gov.
The appeal surfaced inside a fight over testimony. Judge Eaton demanded that CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott appear in person to answer one question: how long would it take to repay all 330,000 importers who might be eligible? The DOJ objected, argued Scott could not be compelled to testify, and offered a deputy instead. In the same breath, the lawyers wrote that the government “intends to appeal the court’s universal injunction,” per the Associated Press account published by PBS NewsHour. Eaton set a June 9 hearing on why he shouldn’t order the government to speed things up.
Here is the practical split. CBP says it will keep processing refunds “as quickly as it can” for businesses that filed legal complaints. For everyone else, the refund rests on Eaton’s universal order, and that order is exactly what the government is trying to kill. There is a second wrinkle that hits high-ticket importers specifically. Once an import entry goes through “liquidation,” which finalizes 180 days after goods arrive, the DOJ argues CBP can’t refund it without an importer-specific court order. Older entries are the ones at the most risk of falling into legal limbo.
One detail worth sitting with: the litigators expect the government to win. “If the government appealed the universal refund order, it would win,” constitutional litigator Matthew Seligman told Bloomberg and Fortune, pointing to the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision narrowing nationwide injunctions in the birthright-citizenship case. The executive branch fights universal orders as a matter of habit, and this is one more.
The twist is that winning the appeal might not kill the refunds, just slow them to a crawl. EY global trade partner Lynlee Brown told Fortune that Eaton has signaled he would approve refund eligibility for every individual importer anyway, one case at a time, if his universal order gets overturned. That turns a streamlined portal into 330,000 separate filings. Trump himself said shortly after the February ruling that the refunds would take years to litigate, a comment he made on the record and reported by CNBC. Brown also flagged the politics: clawing back a promised refund in a midterm year is not a popular move, which is the one thing that might keep the administration from pushing the appeal all the way.
How We Got Here
The Supreme Court invalidated Trump’s country-by-country “reciprocal” tariffs on February 20 in a 6-3 decision, ruling he exceeded his authority under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That single ruling put $166 billion in collected duties into question. CBP stood up the CAPE refund portal in April, and the first money moved in May. For a few weeks it looked like one of the cleaner government refunds in recent memory.
More than a thousand companies didn’t wait for a portal. Costco, Kohl’s, Goodyear, and fruit distributor Dole all filed suit to recover their tariff costs, and those cases are the ones now sitting in the protected lane. The smaller operators, the ones who figured the refund would just show up, are the ones exposed to the appeal.
The Supreme Court only struck the IEEPA tariffs. Other duties stayed live, and the administration moved fast to replace the lost leverage. Within hours of the ruling it imposed across-the-board tariffs under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, then layered Section 301 investigations on top. The Court of International Trade later ruled the Section 122 tariffs illegal too, which is why I wrote up the Section 122 sunset and what it means for your costs. The point for operators is simple: the tariff picture is still moving, and the refund is only one piece of it.
Why This Matters for Your Store
If you sell high-ticket products sourced from U.S. manufacturers, which is the model I teach and the one most of my clients run, your direct exposure here is probably small. The IEEPA refunds are about import duties, and a clean domestic-supplier setup means you weren’t the importer of record on most of it. This is one more reason I push people toward the high-ticket model with U.S. suppliers instead of importing containers of low-margin inventory.
But plenty of store owners do import. If you brought in your own inventory, private-label goods, or packaging from overseas, you may have paid these duties directly. And if you ordered product from an overseas seller and a carrier like FedEx, UPS, or DHL collected the tariff at delivery, you might be owed money through them. Those carriers acted as customs brokers and have all said they’ll return refunds to the shippers and buyers who paid. That money is real, and for a lot of operators it’s a meaningful chunk of working capital.
The math on waiting is the problem. The refunds that have gone out so far have been slow and partial. Toy maker Basic Fun received about $450,000 against a multimillion-dollar claim, then almost nothing for days after, with the CEO calling it a “total slow roll.” Men’s grooming brand Manscaped got roughly 30% of its $12 million. If you’re sitting on a five- or six-figure tariff bill, you cannot run your business as though that cash is arriving on a schedule. Build your plan around the money you actually have, not the money a court might release.
Here’s a rough threshold to think in. If you paid under about $10,000 in IEEPA duties total, chasing an individual filing through a stalled process probably costs more in time and fees than it returns, so file through the portal while the universal order stands and then stop watching it. If you paid somewhere north of $50,000, this is real money and worth a conversation with a trade attorney about filing your own complaint before the appeal narrows your options. Between those two numbers, it comes down to how clean your records are and how badly you need the cash. The companies that already sued, the Costcos and Kohl’s of the world, did this math a year ago and locked in their lane.
This is where clean books decide everything. To even know your exposure, you need every import entry, every duty line, and every carrier charge in one place. I keep my own numbers tight with Finaloop for real-time ecommerce bookkeeping, and a lot of operators run QuickBooks for the same reason. If your tariff payments are scattered across carrier invoices and supplier emails, you can’t file a credible claim and you definitely can’t model your cash position. The same goes for the supplier side: knowing your true landed cost is half the game, which is why I walk through vetting suppliers and locking down terms before you ever place a big order.
If all of this sounds like a lot of moving parts to track while also running ads, fulfilling orders, and answering customers, that’s the honest reality of importing in 2026. It’s also exactly why I built a done-for-you turnkey store service around U.S. suppliers and a structure that keeps you out of the customs-broker mess in the first place. My team builds the business on the model that has the fewest of these landmines, so you’re not the one refreshing a refund portal at midnight.
New to all this and not sure where you stand on tariffs, suppliers, or structure? My free beginner guide walks you through the model from zero. Get the free high-ticket beginner guide →
What To Do This Week
This is a legal story, but there are concrete moves you can make before the June 9 hearing changes the picture. Don’t wait to see how the appeal shakes out.
- Pull your import records now. Get your CBP entry data and carrier duty invoices for everything you brought in since April 2025. If you don’t have time to chase it down, a trained assistant from OnlineJobs.ph can compile the entries and amounts into one sheet in a day or two.
- Separate IEEPA duties from everything else. Only the struck-down “reciprocal” IEEPA tariffs are in the refund pool. Section 232, Section 301, and the new Section 122 charges are not part of this. Tag each line so you know your real refundable number.
- Decide on a protest before liquidation closes. Entries finalize 180 days after arrival, and the DOJ is arguing it can’t refund liquidated entries without an importer-specific order. If you have large older entries, talk to a trade attorney about filing now. For the entity paperwork side, services like LegalZoom or Bizee can get your LLC and records in order if you’ve been operating loose.
- Clean your books and quantify exposure. Reconcile every duty payment so you have a defensible total. This is the step most operators skip and then regret.
- Do not price around the refund. Keep your margins set on the costs you’re actually carrying today. If the money comes, treat it as a bonus to your balance sheet, not a reason to cut prices now.
- Map your structure if you’re exposed. If this episode showed you that your business setup is messy, book a free discovery call and we’ll map out a cleaner path, supplier model included.
Frequently Asked Questions
Am I getting a tariff refund automatically?
No. You had to file a claim through CBP’s CAPE portal, and even then the speed depends on whether your entries were finalized and whether you sued. Nothing lands in your account on its own.
I didn’t file a lawsuit. Can I still get my money?
For now, yes, through the universal order that covers all importers. That order is exactly what the DOJ is appealing, so the businesses with the firmest claim are the ones that filed their own complaints. I covered the original window in my piece on claiming CAPE refunds before you lose them.
Which tariffs are actually refundable?
Only the IEEPA “reciprocal” country-by-country tariffs the Supreme Court struck down. Section 232, Section 301, and Section 122 duties are separate and stay in effect, so they’re not part of this refund.
I’m a high-ticket dropshipper with U.S. suppliers. Does this hit me?
Probably not directly, since you likely weren’t the importer of record. The bigger lesson is structural: domestic sourcing keeps you out of these fights, which is one reason I think a proper U.S. business setup and supplier model matters so much.
When does the court decide?
Judge Eaton set a June 9 hearing on whether to force the government to speed up refunds. The appeal itself will take longer to play out, and the administration has said it expects years of litigation.
Should I move my prices because of this?
No. Set pricing on your current landed costs. If you want a framework for that, my breakdown of how margins shape your strategy walks through the math.
How should I hold any refund I do get?
Park it where it’s liquid and easy to move to suppliers, especially if you pay overseas. I use Wise for multi-currency holding and cheap transfers, and I run my store on Shopify so the financial side stays clean and connected.
Want my team to build and run your high-ticket store on a U.S.-supplier model that sidesteps the customs mess entirely? See the turnkey done-for-you service →
Watch the June 9 hearing, get your import records in one place, and keep your pricing tied to today’s costs, not tomorrow’s maybe. The refund is a nice-to-have, not a plan. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for daily breakdowns like this one. More breaking news later today.
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- Northwest Registered Agent vs ZenBusiness in 2026
- How Margins Shape Your High-Ticket Dropshipping Strategy
Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.
