CAPE Phase 3 Opens Late July — Finally Liquidated Entries, and Whether You Need to Sue

What Phase 3 Covers — and Why These Entries Are Different

A customs entry liquidates when CBP finalizes the duties on it; liquidation becomes final once the window to reopen it administratively has passed. Phases 1 and 2 deliberately covered only unliquidated entries and entries within 80 days of liquidation — the ones CBP can still adjust on its own authority. Phase 3 is everything else: entries that liquidated with IEEPA duties baked in and aged past the window, roughly $11.4 billion across the 2025 tariff period.

If you imported heavily in early-to-mid 2025 and didn't act quickly after the February ruling, there's a good chance a meaningful share of your refund pool sits here. These are disproportionately the entries of smaller importers — the companies without customs counsel watching liquidation dates — which is exactly why this phase is where the fight is.

The Catch: The Government Says Only CIT Filers Get Paid

CBP will have the technical capability to process finally liquidated refunds in late July. Whether it will use that capability for everyone is the contested question.

The Department of Justice's position: finality is finality. Once an entry finally liquidates, CBP lacks statutory authority to reliquidate it unilaterally — the importer's remedy was a protest or lawsuit, and importers who did neither are out. On that reading, Phase 3 processes refunds only for importers who filed a protective action at the Court of International Trade before their entries' finality locked in.

The CIT disagreed: Judge Eaton's orders require universal refunds of the unlawful duties, finally liquidated or not. The government has appealed those orders to the Federal Circuit, and until that appeal resolves, importers without a CIT case are in limbo — collectively owed tens of billions of dollars they may need litigation to recover.

The Class Action That Could Change the Math

The newest development: a motion for class certification has been filed at the CIT seeking to certify a class of importers who are currently ineligible under CBP's systems — principally those holding finally liquidated entries with no individual lawsuit on file.

If certified, the class would sweep in exactly the importers the government's position excludes, without each one having to file its own case. It is a genuine potential backstop — but it is a motion, not a ruling. Certification is not guaranteed, the government will oppose it, and class relief could take substantially longer than Phase 3 payments to CIT filers. Treat it as a safety net you might land in, not a strategy you choose. If you have material exposure and an open protest window, acting on your own timeline still dominates waiting on someone else's motion.

Do You Need to Sue? A Decision Framework

Work through these in order:

1. You already filed at the CIT. You're in the strongest position — you're in the group even the government concedes gets paid. Watch for the Phase 3 opening and be ready to file your declaration immediately.
2. Your entries are NOT finally liquidated (unliquidated or within 80 days). You don't need Phase 3 at all — file through Phase 1/2 now, before they age out. Every week of waiting moves entries toward the contested pool.
3. Finally liquidated, no lawsuit, protest window still open. File a protest under 19 U.S.C. § 1514 within 180 days of liquidation. A timely protest preserves your claim regardless of how the Federal Circuit appeal or the class motion resolves. This is the single most time-sensitive move on the board — entries that liquidated in the first quarter of 2026 have windows closing this summer.
4. Finally liquidated, protest window closed, six-figure-plus exposure. Talk to trade counsel about filing at the CIT now. An individual suit is the one path the government concedes, and for exposure over ~$500K the economics usually work.
5. Finally liquidated, window closed, smaller exposure. Your realistic paths are the Federal Circuit affirming universal refunds or the class action being certified. Document everything now — entry numbers, liquidation dates, IEEPA duty amounts — so you can move the day either door opens.

The Deadline Nobody Is Watching: 180-Day Protest Windows

The protest deadline runs 180 days from the date of liquidation — entry by entry, not importer by importer. That means there is no single cliff date; every week, another tranche of 2025-period entries quietly passes from 'protestable' to 'final,' shifting those dollars from the safe column to the contested one.

Run the exercise this week: pull your liquidation dates from ACE (report ES-003 shows entry status), flag every IEEPA entry that has liquidated, and compute each one's 180-day mark. Entries still inside the window can be preserved with a protest for a filing cost that is trivial next to the duties at stake. Entries past it are betting on the courts. The difference between those two outcomes, for many importers, is simply whether anyone looked at the dates in July.

What to Do This Week

1. Pull liquidation status on every IEEPA-period entry (ACE report ES-003). Sort into: unliquidated / within 80 days / finally liquidated.
2. File Phase 1/2 declarations immediately for anything not yet final — don't let clean entries age into the contested pool.
3. Calculate 180-day protest deadlines for every liquidated entry and calendar them.
4. File protests on in-window entries with material IEEPA duties — it's the cheapest insurance available.
5. If you filed at the CIT, prepare your Phase 3 declaration package now so you're in the first batch when it opens.
6. If you're stuck in the excluded group, document your entries and get a professional read on your exposure — the class action and the appeal will move fast once decided, and the importers who recover will be the ones with their paperwork ready.