Key Takeaways
- The CIT certified a class action for IEEPA refunds on October 8, 2026.
It covers importers of record that paid IEEPA duties between February 1, 2025, and February 19, 2026, and never filed their own refund lawsuit. - Membership is automatic.
The class was certified under a rule that doesn’t allow opting in or out, so there’s nothing to sign up for. - No refunds have been ordered yet.
The court still has to rule on the class’s request for an order directing CBP to reliquidate members’ entries. - It’s aimed at the money CAPE can’t reach.
About $30 billion in unlawfully collected IEEPA duties would stay with the Treasury if CAPE stopped today. - Your Section 301 drawback doesn’t depend on any of this.
If you planned to recover reciprocal tariffs through drawback, weigh it against the class first. Your Section 301 duties are recoverable through drawback either way.
For most importers who paid IEEPA tariffs, CBP’s CAPE system has been the refund answer. Since it launched in April, roughly $126 billion in duties and interest has gone back out. But one group has been stuck: importers whose entries were finally liquidated and who never sued at the Court of International Trade. CBP’s position is that it can’t reliquidate those entries without a court order.
On October 8, 2026, the court moved to close that gap. In Freestyle World, Inc. v. United States, Judge Richard K. Eaton certified a nationwide class of importers who paid the unlawful IEEPA duties but haven’t filed their own lawsuits. Here’s what the ruling does, what it doesn’t do yet, and what it means if you were planning to recover any of that money through duty drawback.
What the court decided
The court certified this class:
All importers of record who paid duties imposed by the Challenged Tariff Orders between February 1, 2025, and February 19, 2026, excluding any entity that has separately filed an action seeking to recover IEEPA duties payments.
The “Challenged Tariff Orders” are the reciprocal tariffs and the fentanyl/trafficking tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in February in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump. The court counts roughly 330,000 importers of record that paid IEEPA duties, against about 7,000 plaintiffs in more than 4,000 individual lawsuits. Most IEEPA payers, in other words, are class members.
The class was certified under USCIT Rule 23(b)(2), which covers lawsuits seeking a court order rather than damages. Under that rule, membership is mandatory. You don’t opt in, and you can’t opt out. If you fit the definition, you’re in.
What it doesn’t do yet
Certification isn’t a refund order. The class is asking the court to direct CBP to liquidate or reliquidate every member’s entries without the IEEPA duties, with refunds and interest following automatically. It’s the same relief the court has already ordered in more than 4,000 individual cases. The court hasn’t granted it for the class yet.
The next steps are procedural. The court set a closed conference with the parties for October 13, and the parties must submit a proposed schedule by October 22, including the date the government will respond to the class complaint. The government opposed certifying the class, and it’s separately appealing the court’s broader reliquidation order at the Federal Circuit. There’s no timeline yet for class refunds.
Why it matters: the CAPE gap
By the court’s own account, CAPE has worked. As of October 2, CBP had accepted about $136.6 billion in potential and certified refunds and sent roughly $126 billion in duties and interest to the Treasury for disbursement. Phase 3, which opened October 6, lets the plaintiffs in those individual lawsuits claim refunds on their finally liquidated entries.
But CAPE doesn’t reach everyone. It won’t accept finally liquidated entries from importers who never sued, and some importers, mostly small ones in the court’s view, have never filed a CAPE declaration at all. If CAPE stopped today, about $30 billion in unlawfully collected duties would stay on deposit with the Treasury. The class is built to reach that money.
What it means for duty drawback
The reciprocal IEEPA tariff is drawback-eligible on its own. For importers with finally liquidated entries who never sued, drawback on exported or destroyed goods has been the only near-term way to recover that duty, and it still is. What’s changed is that a second path is now on the horizon, and the two pay differently. A class refund, if the court orders one, would return the full duty plus interest. Drawback returns up to 99%.
There’s also a sequencing question. CBP holds entries that are already in a drawback claim out of CAPE so it doesn’t pay the same dollar twice, and the court’s order doesn’t say how class relief will treat those entries. If you’re weighing drawback on reciprocal-tariff entries, talk to a drawback expert before you file. We walk through how the two systems interact in IEEPA Refunds vs. Duty Drawback: Which One Can You Claim?
The fentanyl/trafficking tariff is a different story. Its executive order bars drawback outright, so for importers who never sued, the class action may be the first real path to getting that duty back.
Your Section 301 drawback doesn’t wait on the courts
None of this touches the duties you’re still paying. Section 301 duties on Chinese-origin goods, Section 201 safeguard duties, Section 122 duties paid between February and July 2026, and the new Section 301 duties on roughly 60 economies are all recoverable through drawback when the goods are exported or destroyed. That recovery doesn’t hinge on a court ruling. The five-year lookback runs from each import date, so the oldest entries drop off first.
Drawback also isn’t limited to the importer of record. The class action covers importers of record by definition, but drawback can also reach a company that bought imported goods from the importer and later exported or destroyed them.
One caution: if the same entries also carried IEEPA duties, get the order right so a drawback claim doesn’t hold up an IEEPA refund on those entries.
Find out what you’re owed
Duty drawback is all we do, and we work on contingency. There’s no fee unless we recover money for you, no retainer, and nothing upfront.
Start with our Drawback Calculator to size up your recovery, or book a discovery call. We’ll look at your import origins, export flows, and IEEPA exposure, and tell you what’s claimable now and what’s worth waiting on.
You are if you were the importer of record on entries that paid IEEPA duties between February 1, 2025, and February 19, 2026, and you haven’t filed your own lawsuit seeking IEEPA refunds. Importers who did sue are excluded and proceed through their own cases.
No. The class was certified under USCIT Rule 23(b)(2), which doesn’t allow opting in or out. Membership is automatic for anyone who fits the definition.
There’s no timeline yet. The court certified the class but hasn’t ruled on the order the class is seeking, which would direct CBP to reliquidate members’ entries without the IEEPA duties. A scheduling order is due October 22, 2026.
Yes. The class covers duties paid under both the reciprocal and the fentanyl/trafficking IEEPA tariffs. That matters most for the fentanyl tariff, which can’t be recovered through drawback.
It depends on your entries. Drawback can recover up to 99% now on goods you’ve exported or destroyed. A class refund could return the full duty plus interest, but there’s no timeline, and the order doesn’t say how it will treat entries already in a drawback claim. Talk to a drawback expert before you file.
No. Section 301 duties remain drawback-eligible regardless of how the IEEPA litigation plays out. If the same entries also carried IEEPA duties, coordinate the timing so a drawback claim doesn’t hold up an IEEPA refund.
