At 8 a.m. EST on Monday, April 20, 2026, US Customs and Border Protection flipped the switch on the CAPE portal inside the ACE Secure Data Portal. Within hours, thousands of Importers of Record — many represented by the 56,497 entities that pre-registered for ACH as of April 14 — began uploading declarations against the approximately $127 billion in refundable IEEPA duties (including interest) they are owed. Total refunds across all importers across 53 million shipments: approximately $166 billion. CBP is running two live support webinars this week and next (April 21 and April 28, both at 1 p.m. ET, identical content, first-come first-served), and the REV-615 CAPE Refunds Trade Report is now available inside ACE for tracking refund status. Here's what happened on day one, what filers are getting wrong, and what Phase 1 importers should do this week.
Day One Facts: What Actually Happened April 20
CAPE went live at 8 a.m. EST on April 20, 2026, inside the ACE Secure Data Portal — the same login Importers of Record already use for Form 7501 entries. CBP opened the first live support webinar for April 21 at 1 p.m. ET, with a second identical session on April 28 at 1 p.m. ET. Registration is required and seats are first-come, first-served. Importers can now monitor refund status inside ACE using the REV-615 CAPE Refunds Trade Report. Acceptance rules are spelled out: unliquidated entries accepted on CAPE will be scheduled to liquidate 45 days from the declaration acceptance date; already-liquidated entries will be reliquidated the next business day after acceptance. Refunds are consolidated into one lump sum per IOR per liquidation date. Mass processing strips all IEEPA HTS Chapter 99 codes and recalculates duties as if IEEPA never applied. Interest is calculated per 19 CFR 24.36. Critically, CBP processes liquidations and reliquidations Monday through Thursday only — so a clean declaration accepted Thursday evening won't see action until the following Monday.
Common Mistakes That Kill a Declaration
Law firm and broker guidance in the first 24 hours converged on a consistent list of rejection triggers. First, including ineligible entries breaks the whole file: AD/CVD entries, drawback claims, entries with open protests, reconciliation entries, and any non-ACE filings will all cause rejections. Second, you cannot amend a declaration once CBP accepts it — if you miss entries or fat-finger an entry number, you must file a new declaration, not fix the old one. Third, each entry can only appear on ONE accepted declaration across all filers; duplicates (including cases where both the IOR and broker try to file the same entry) get rejected. Fourth, any refund issued can be netted against debts the importer owes CBP — so outstanding bills will reduce the check, not block the declaration. Fifth, only the original IOR or the specific broker who filed the original entries can submit. Attorneys cannot file directly through CAPE. Sixth, Post Summary Corrections (PSCs) are NOT the mechanism for IEEPA refunds — CAPE is the only path; trying to request IEEPA refunds through PSCs will be rejected and will burn time.
Phase 1 Is Deliberately Narrow
Phase 1 covers only unliquidated entries and entries liquidated within the last 80 days. That excludes warehouse entries, extended or suspended entries, and any entries under review. For importers with heavy volume in April through August 2025 that has already liquidated past the 80-day protest window, Phase 1 won't help. CBP has not announced a Phase 2 timeline — only that it will extend coverage to older and finalized entries. Fully liquidated older entries that fall outside Phase 1 and outside the 80-day protest window may require formal protests under 19 U.S.C. § 1514 or direct Court of International Trade litigation. Preserve every 7501, payment record, and liquidation notice now — when Phase 2 opens, the importers with organized records will file first and get paid first. See our main refund guide for full Phase 1 qualification mechanics.
Who Is Filing and How Big Is the Queue
As of April 14, 2026, 56,497 importers had completed ACH registration and are eligible for approximately $127 billion in refunds including interest. Total refundable IEEPA duties across all 330,000+ importers and 53 million shipments reach approximately $166 billion. The pre-registered cohort is heavy on large retailers — Walmart, Target, Costco, FedEx, and other national brands are expected to file massive multi-entry claims — but small businesses from cigar importers to regional hardware stores are also in the queue. CBP has publicly estimated that processing all refunds manually would take roughly 4.4 million working hours, which is why mass processing strips Chapter 99 IEEPA codes and recalculates duties algorithmically rather than re-examining each entry. The volume is also why CBP's realistic acceptance-to-ACH timeline is 60–90 days and Treasury Secretary Bessent has warned the process 'could be a mess.'
Watch-Outs for Filers This Week
If you're filing this week, five practical watch-outs: (1) Pull the REV-615 CAPE Refunds Trade Report in ACE every business day once you've submitted — it's the only first-party status signal CBP is providing and surfaces rejection reasons without needing a help-desk call. (2) Plan for the Thursday cliff — declarations accepted late Thursday don't see a liquidation action until Monday, which adds 3+ calendar days to your timeline. (3) If you're a broker, coordinate with the IOR on WHICH entries go on WHICH declaration before you upload — because an entry on an accepted declaration is locked, overlapping broker/IOR filings cause avoidable rejections. (4) Don't use PSCs. Don't use PSCs. Don't use PSCs. (5) Register for the April 28 CBP webinar even if you think you've got it handled — the first round of common rejections will be covered with concrete examples, which is the cheapest QA you'll find this month.
What CAPE Does NOT Cover
CAPE refunds only IEEPA reciprocal tariff duties — the 10% baseline and higher country-specific IEEPA rates in effect from April 2025 through February 2026. It does NOT refund Section 232 tariffs on steel (50%), aluminum (50%), autos (25%), copper (50%), semiconductors (25%), or lumber (10%). It does NOT refund Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods. It does NOT refund the current 10% Section 122 tariff signed by Trump on February 20, 2026 — Section 122 is a different legal authority, still in force, and still being collected. Plan cash flow accordingly: the refund you're getting is the IEEPA portion only, and for most importers that's roughly the difference between the old IEEPA country rate and the current 10% Section 122 baseline.
Next Steps and What to Track
If you haven't already: confirm ACE Portal access and finish ACH enrollment (no ACH, no refund). Pull a complete list of your IEEPA-period entries sorted by liquidation status. Identify which qualify for Phase 1 (unliquidated or within 80 days of liquidation). Contact your customs broker — most major brokers (Livingston, Expeditors, CH Robinson) have flat-rate CAPE filing offerings live as of this week. Use our refund estimator to ballpark how much you should be receiving before you file, so you can sanity-check CBP's payment against your own records. Subscribe to Phase 2 updates — CBP has not announced dates yet, but importers with older liquidated entries outside the 80-day window will need Phase 2 (or a formal CIT filing) to recover that money. For the full Phase 1 filing mechanics, read our main IEEPA refund guide. For context on what was struck down and what replaced it, see our SCOTUS ruling coverage.
Key Takeaway
Day one of CAPE went live on schedule. The process rewards importers who read the rules carefully: no amendments after acceptance, no duplicate entries across declarations, no ineligible entry types in the file, no PSCs. Track status via the REV-615 report, expect Monday-through-Thursday processing only, and plan for 60–90 days from acceptance to ACH deposit. Phase 1 is narrow — if you have older liquidated entries outside the 80-day window, preserve records and wait for Phase 2. Register for the April 28 CBP webinar, use our estimator to sanity-check your refund before filing, and read the main refund guide for the full filing workflow.
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