CAPE Phase 1 vs Phase 2: Which IEEPA Refund Claims Qualify When (May 2026)

What CAPE Is

CAPE — the Customs Adjustment for Phased Entry portal — is the refund mechanism CBP built to comply with the March 4, 2026 Court of International Trade order directing the agency to refund all 330,000+ importers who paid IEEPA tariffs between April 2025 and February 23, 2026. The order followed the Supreme Court's February 20, 2026 ruling in *Learning Resources v. Trump* (6-3), which struck down the IEEPA tariff regime as unconstitutional.

In dollar terms, the order covers roughly $166 billion across 53 million-plus entries. That is the largest customs refund event in US history.

CBP couldn't process that volume through the normal protest channel (CBP Form 19), so CAPE was built as a streamlined refund track inside the existing ACE Portal. It launched as Phase 1 on April 20, 2026, with Phase 2 expected later in 2026 to cover the more complex categories. Refunds are paid via ACH to the bank account enrolled in the importer's ACE account, with statutory interest running from the date the original duty was paid.

Phase 1 Eligibility: The 80-Day Rule

Phase 1 covers exactly two categories of IEEPA entries:

1. Unliquidated entries. Any entry that has not yet liquidated is eligible. Most US customs entries liquidate automatically by operation of law 314 days after the entry summary date — about ten and a half months. Entries filed in mid-2025 onward are still unliquidated and almost always Phase 1 eligible.

2. Liquidated entries within the 80-day rule. Entries that have already liquidated are eligible only if liquidation occurred within 80 days of the date the CAPE Declaration is submitted. Past 80 days, the entry falls outside Phase 1 and rolls to Phase 2 (or to the formal protest process).

The 80-day window isn't arbitrary. It mirrors the 180-day formal protest window in 19 U.S.C. § 1514 but tightens it inside CAPE so CBP can pull entry records cleanly without contesting later corrections. Practically, the rule means importers need to file CAPE Declarations promptly after entries liquidate — particularly older 2025 entries that are liquidating on rolling dates throughout the second half of 2026.

Phase 1 also requires:

• Active ACE Portal account with the importer's IOR number
• ACH banking enrolled in the Importer sub-account before submission (most common rejection cause)
• Entry data that matches what CBP has on file (HTS, value, quantity, country of origin)
• IEEPA duty actually paid on the entry (entries that only carried Section 232/301 are not eligible)

Refunds are paid 60-90 days after CAPE accepts the Declaration, plus statutory interest. First payments hit May 12, 2026.

What's Excluded From Phase 1

If your entries fall into any of these buckets, you cannot collect through Phase 1 today:

• Reconciliation entries filed under 19 U.S.C. § 1484b — these are flagged by CBP and held for Phase 2.
• Drawback claims filed against IEEPA-duty entries — drawback runs through a separate ACE module and is not part of CAPE.
• Entries liquidated more than 80 days before your CAPE Declaration submission — these roll to Phase 2 or require a formal CBP protest under § 1514.
• Entries under active CBP audit, investigation, or AD/CVD review — these are pulled from CAPE until the underlying matter resolves.
• Entries with unresolved data discrepancies — HTS mismatches, value variances, or COO discrepancies between your records and CBP's trigger the "Unable to calculate duty" error and have to be reconciled before resubmission.

For importers carrying meaningful exposure in any excluded category, the right move today is to document the entries, preserve all records, and prepare the Phase 2 filing package so it's ready when the second tranche opens.

Phase 2: Expected Scope and Timing

CBP has signaled Phase 2 in three public communications since April but has not committed to a date. The agency's working scope:

• Reconciliation entries held under § 1484b.
• Drawback claims referencing IEEPA-duty entries.
• Historically liquidated entries that fall outside the 80-day Phase 1 window — entries liquidated in summer and fall 2025 are the largest expected bucket.
• Entries with AD/CVD overlays once the underlying orders are resolved.

Most likely timing: Phase 2 launches Q3 2026, after CBP works through the Phase 1 backlog and resolves the operational learnings from the first ~90 days of CAPE submissions. The agency has stated publicly that it will not launch Phase 2 until Phase 1 acceptance rates stabilize — currently around 21% of submissions are accepted on first pass.

The practical effect for importers: if you paid IEEPA duties on entries that liquidated in summer/fall 2025, your refund is real but its timing is Phase 2, not Phase 1. The Court of International Trade order covers those entries — the operational track to collect them is what's still being built.

How to Check Entry Status in ACE

Inside the ACE Portal, the report that tells you Phase 1 eligibility is the REV-615 Entry Summary Status Report, available under Reports → Account Revenue. Run it for the IOR number across the period April 2025 - February 2026.

The column that matters is Liquidation Status:

• "Unliquidated" — Phase 1 eligible today.
• "Liquidated" with a date within 80 days of today — Phase 1 eligible, but the window is closing daily; file the CAPE Declaration as soon as possible.
• "Liquidated" with a date more than 80 days ago — outside Phase 1; document for Phase 2 or a formal protest.
• "Suspended" — held for reconciliation, AD/CVD, or audit; held for Phase 2.

The second status to check is the REV-310 Liquidation Calendar, which projects when unliquidated 2025 entries are expected to liquidate. Most 2025 IEEPA entries will hit liquidation by late summer 2026, so the 80-day window will be closing on rolling dates from mid-July onward. Filing CAPE Declarations before liquidation is operationally simpler than racing the 80-day clock after.

Common Phase 1 Rejection Causes

CBP's first 90 days of CAPE submissions show four dominant rejection patterns, accounting for roughly 79% of all rejections:

1. HTS classification mismatches — the HTS code on the CAPE Declaration doesn't match the HTS on the original entry. Most common when broker rebilling or post-entry amendments shifted the classification. Triggers "Unable to calculate duty" or "Classification mismatch" errors.

2. Valuation inconsistencies — declared value on the CAPE Declaration differs from CBP's record by more than a small tolerance. Common when reconciliation or supplemental declarations changed value after entry. Triggers "Value variance exceeds threshold."

3. Country-of-origin discrepancies — COO on the Declaration doesn't match CBP's record. Most common with transshipped goods or goods where origin was reclassified after entry under § 304 substantial transformation rules.

4. Section 232/301 stacking errors — entries where Section 232 or 301 duties were paid in addition to IEEPA and the CAPE Declaration tries to claim refund on the wrong layer. Section 232/301 are not refundable through CAPE; only the IEEPA layer is.

For importers with $250,000+ in expected refund, the right move is a pre-filing data audit that reconciles your records against CBP's REV-615 export *before* you submit the Declaration. Resubmissions are allowed but each cycle adds 30-60 days to the refund timeline.

Estimate Your Refund First

Before filing, importers should know roughly what's at stake — the difference between filing a clean Declaration and resubmitting after rejection can be 60-90 days of float on the refund. A 60-second estimator returns a country-specific refund estimate (based on the pre-ruling IEEPA rate and your import volume) and emails the full breakdown within 5 minutes. No commitment, no broker engagement required at the estimate stage — it's a sizing exercise to decide whether to file CAPE in-house or engage professional support. Refunds over $100,000 typically warrant a pre-filing audit; refunds under that threshold are often filed by the importer's existing customs broker without outside help.