Duty Drawback

Duty drawback is a CBP program that refunds up to 99% of the duties, taxes, and fees you paid on imported goods when those goods (or goods made from them) are later exported or destroyed — effectively a rebate for merchandise that never stayed in the US market. The 1% CBP retains covers administrative cost, and claims can generally reach back to imports made within the prior five years. For example, an importer that paid $200,000 in duties on components later assembled into products and exported can recover up to about $198,000 through a drawback claim. It matters because most eligible importers never file: drawback is one of the few fully legal ways to recover tariff dollars already spent, and with today's stacked 232/301 rates the refundable amounts are larger than they have ever been. This is distinct from the CAPE process refunding IEEPA reciprocal tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court on February 20, 2026 (a roughly $166B refund pool) — drawback is an ongoing export-based refund, not a court-ordered one.