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Drawback pays on the same entries — 99% of lawful duties, 5 years back.
How much do you import per year?
Total declared value across all entries. A rough range is fine.
The Drawback Library
The $166 billion IEEPA refund event taught a generation of importers something they'd never had reason to learn: the duties you pay are not always final. But most CAPE filers stopped at one refund when many are owed two. Duty drawback — the permanent program under 19 U.S.C. § 1313 — refunds 99% of the lawful duties (MFN base rates, Section 301, Section 232) on any imported goods that were exported or destroyed, reaching back five years. It operates independently of the IEEPA refund, uses the same entry-level data you already reconciled for CAPE, and unlike CAPE, it pays again every year. This guide explains how the two programs differ, how they stack on the same entries, and why finishing a CAPE filing leaves you 80% of the way to a drawback claim. The full drawback overview lives at /duty-drawback.
Two Programs, Two Legal Bases, Zero Conflict
The confusion is understandable — both programs end with CBP sending you money for duties you already paid. But they share nothing structurally:
- The IEEPA refund exists because the Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 that the IEEPA reciprocal tariffs (April 2025 – February 2026) were unlawful from the start. CBP is returning money it never had authority to collect, through the CAPE process. It is a one-time corrective event with a defined window.
- Duty drawback exists because Congress decided in 1789 — and has reaffirmed ever since, most recently in 19 U.S.C. § 1313 — that duties on goods that don't stay in the US economy should be refunded at 99% when those goods are exported or destroyed. It is a permanent, recurring entitlement.
One program corrects an unlawful collection; the other refunds a lawful one based on what happened to the goods. Claiming both on the same entry is not double-dipping — it's collecting two distinct refunds you're separately entitled to.
What Each Program Refunds — Line by Line
Picture a single 2025 entry from Vietnam: $500,000 of goods, carrying a 46% IEEPA reciprocal tariff ($230,000) plus a 6% MFN base rate ($30,000). Total duty paid: $260,000.
- CAPE/IEEPA refund: returns the $230,000 of IEEPA duty — regardless of what happened to the goods. The collection was unlawful; the merchandise's fate is irrelevant.
- Duty drawback: returns 99% of the $30,000 MFN duty — but only on the share of goods exported or destroyed. If 40% of that shipment was re-exported to Canada, drawback recovers $30,000 × 40% × 99% = $11,880.
On that one entry: $241,880 recovered across the two programs, against $260,000 paid.
For Chinese-origin goods the drawback side gets much bigger, because Section 301 duties of 25-100% are drawback-eligible. A $500,000 China entry at 25% Section 301 + 5% MFN carries $150,000 in lawful, drawback-eligible duty — at a 40% export share, that's $59,400 of drawback on top of whatever CAPE returned.
Same Entry Data, Second Check
Here's the operational insight that makes stacking nearly free for CAPE filers: the two claims run on the same dataset.
To file a CAPE Declaration you (or your filing partner) assembled entry-level records — entry numbers, dates, HTS codes, declared values, duty amounts, liquidation status — typically pulled from ACE and reconciled against broker records. That reconciliation was the expensive part of the IEEPA refund.
A drawback claim starts from exactly that file, plus one additional dataset: your export and destruction records (AES filings, bills of lading, destruction certificates). The import side — usually the harder half of a drawback claim — is already done.
- CAPE filing: import data reconciled ✓
- Drawback claim: import data ✓ + export data + 8-digit HTS substitution match
Importers who finished CAPE are, functionally, holding a pre-built drawback claim with one missing input. That's why the smart sequencing for anyone with export activity is: CAPE first (deadline-driven), drawback screen immediately after — while the entry file is still fresh and the team still remembers where everything lives.
The Drawback Side of Your Entries — Free Estimate
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How much do you import per year?
Total declared value across all entries. A rough range is fine.
The Recurring Difference: CAPE Ends, Drawback Doesn't
The deeper strategic difference between the two refunds is time-shape.
The IEEPA refund is a closed pool: duties collected April 2025 – February 2026, returned once. When your CAPE refund pays, that program is over for you. There is no 2027 IEEPA refund.
Drawback is an annuity. The same import-export pattern that qualifies your 2021-2026 entries qualifies your 2027 entries, and your 2028 entries, indefinitely. An importer recovering $118,800 per year (the $5M / 8% / 30% profile from our pillar guide) doesn't just collect a five-year lookback of roughly $594,000 — they collect $118,800 again every year the business keeps its shape.
CAPE was the windfall. Drawback is the income stream. Importers who treat the second like the first leave the larger number on the table.
And because the 5-year window rolls continuously, the lookback never fully closes — but it never stops expiring either. The 2021 entries dying this summer are covered in detail in our 5-year lookback guide.
Common Objections, Answered
"My CAPE refund already covered those entries." It covered the IEEPA duty on those entries. The MFN, Section 301, and Section 232 duties on the same entries were lawful, were not refunded by CAPE, and are drawback-eligible to the extent the goods were exported or destroyed.
"We don't export enough for this to matter." The threshold is lower than most assume. At $2M annual imports and a 10% blended duty, even a 15% export share yields about $29,700/year — roughly $148,500 over a five-year lookback.
"Our broker handles our duties and never mentioned drawback." Brokers are paid to clear inbound entries. Drawback is a separate specialty most brokers don't practice. Their silence is an economics artifact, not an eligibility opinion.
"Won't claiming both trigger scrutiny?" The programs are administered separately and CBP's own systems handle entries that appear in both. What matters is accuracy within each claim — which is why the entry-level reconciliation you did for CAPE is an asset, not a risk.
How to Run the Stack
The playbook for an importer who paid IEEPA duties and has any export activity:
- Finish CAPE first. The IEEPA refund has hard procedural windows; drawback's 5-year clock is longer-fused.
- Preserve the entry file. The reconciled import dataset from your CAPE filing is the foundation of the drawback claim. Don't let it scatter.
- Screen the export side. Pull AES filings and carrier records for 2021-present. Match against the import file at the 8-digit HTS level.
- Estimate before engaging. Imports × duty rate × export share × 99% × years. Our 60-second estimator at /lp/drawback-estimate runs this math and emails the breakdown.
- File oldest entries first. The 2021 duty expires first and is usually the richest (pre-diversification China sourcing).
For most CAPE filers, steps 2-4 take days, not months — the heavy lift already happened.
Key Takeaway
The IEEPA refund and duty drawback are not competing claims on the same money — they are two different refunds that happen to live in the same entry records. CAPE returns the unlawful 2025 tariffs once; drawback returns 99% of the lawful duties on exported goods, five years back and every year forward. For importers who already did the CAPE data work, the marginal cost of screening for drawback is trivial and the expected value is six figures. Same entries. Second check. Start with the pillar guide at /duty-drawback or run the 60-second estimate.
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