IEEPA tariff refunds: who gets money back

In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the President authority to impose tariffs. Because the ruling went to authority rather than to procedure, the affected duties were invalid from the moment they were imposed, not merely from the date of the decision. That is what created the refund question, and the amounts are substantial — collections under these actions were estimated in 2025 at more than $200 billion.

The decision itself did not set out a refund mechanism, which left the practical work to the Court of International Trade. Nearly two thousand importers had already filed cases seeking refunds before the ruling, and the government had stipulated in January 2026 that it would refund the duties for similarly situated plaintiffs following a final decision. The CIT subsequently ordered CBP to refund, and processing is under way.

Two boundaries matter. First, the ruling reached IEEPA duties only. Section 301 and Section 232 rest on entirely separate statutes and were expressly unaffected — CBP said so directly in its implementing guidance. If your duty was assessed under one of those authorities, it is not part of this. Second, refunds flow to the importer of record or the party legally entitled to claim, which for a consumer parcel is usually the courier that filed the entry rather than the person who received the package. A separate and still-unresolved question concerns the Section 122 surcharge collected between February and July 2026, which the Court of International Trade held unlawful in May 2026 while an appeal continues.