IEEPA Tariff Refunds in 2026: Which Duties You Can Reclaim, and the Look-Alikes You Cannot

Published 18 September 2026 · Chapter 99 figures verified against the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, 2026 Revision 19, effective 15 September 2026

If your company imported into the United States during 2025 or early 2026, it probably paid duties that the Supreme Court has since held were never lawfully owed — and CBP is refunding them. But two things make this harder than it sounds. The tariff schedule still prints those duties as though they were payable. And a different Chapter 99 charge, which looks almost identical on an entry summary, is a Section 301 duty that is fully in force and will never be refunded.

What happened, in four sentences

On 20 February 2026, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, the Supreme Court held 6–3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorise the President to impose tariffs at all. The tariffs imposed under it were therefore invalid from inception — not merely cancelled going forward. The Court of International Trade has ordered CBP to refund the duties collected, an amount estimated at around $165 billion. A replacement surcharge issued under Section 122 was itself struck down by the CIT in May 2026.

Refunds are not automatic. Money does not come back because a court said so; someone at your company, or your broker, has to claim it against specific entries.

The part that costs people money: two duties that look the same

This is the section worth reading twice, because it is where we see the most confusion and it is not covered clearly anywhere else.

The voided IEEPA duties and a live Section 301 duty are structurally identical on paper. Both are Chapter 99 subheadings. Both are applied by country of origin rather than by product. Both are written in the schedule in exactly the same words — The duty provided in the applicable subheading + 12.5%. Both sit in the 9903.0x range. On an entry summary they are two lines that look like siblings.

They are not siblings. One is refundable and one is not.

Why the confusion is worse than it needs to be

Because the tariff schedule has not caught up with the courts. We checked this directly against the current release. In HTSUS 2026 Revision 19 — published 9 September 2026, effective 15 September, nearly seven months after the ruling — the IEEPA headings are still printed with their duties intact:

Across the two series, more than a hundred headings still carry a positive additional rate in the current schedule. A provision survives in the published text until the USITC issues a modification; a court striking down the authority does not edit the book. The practical consequence is that any spreadsheet, ERP table or software that prices duty by reading the current schedule will still compute the IEEPA charges. If your landed-cost model quotes them today, that is why.

Which of your entries can still be claimed

The single most important thing to understand about the deadlines: they run from liquidation, not from the date of entry. Liquidation is CBP's final calculation of duty on an entry, typically around 314 days after entry. So your exposure is not "did we import in 2025" — it is "when did each entry liquidate", and your oldest entries are the ones expiring first.

What to do this month

None of this requires software or a consultant to begin. It requires a list.

1. Pull your entry data for the affected period. Your broker can export it, or you can obtain your own ACE data directly from CBP. You need, per line: entry number, entry date, liquidation date and status, the Chapter 99 codes reported, and the duty paid against each.
2. Filter to Chapter 99 lines beginning 9903.01 or 9903.02. That is your refundable population. Sum the duty. This number is usually larger than people expect, because the charges were applied per country across everything.
3. Separate out anything in 9903.05, 9903.88, or the Section 232 headings. These are live duties. Excluding them now prevents a bad claim later.
4. Sort by liquidation date, oldest first. That is your priority order, and it is not the same as sorting by value.
5. Check your ACH refund registration before you need it.
6. Then bring in your broker or customs counsel. With the list above already built, that conversation is an hour rather than a project, and it is the point at which professional advice actually earns its fee.

Where our tool fits, and where it does not

Vectelos does not file refund claims and is not a licensed customs broker. What it does is the arithmetic in steps 2 and 3: for a list of codes and origins, it computes the duty attributable to each Chapter 99 measure separately, and it names the statute behind each one, so a Section 301 charge is never presented as something reclaimable. Every rate it applies is verified line-by-line against the published USITC schedule — 13,801 of 13,801 — and re-verified on each revision.

We also keep our own archive of each schedule revision as it is published, which is what let us state above exactly what Revision 19 prints. That is a smaller claim than it sounds, and it is the honest one: we can tell you precisely what the schedule says on a given date. Whether a given duty is lawfully owed on a given entry is a question for your broker and, on this subject in 2026, quite possibly for a court.

The short version

The IEEPA duties in the 9903.01 and 9903.02 series were voided from inception and CBP is refunding them, but only against claims somebody files, on deadlines that run from each entry's liquidation date. The schedule still prints those duties, so software that reads it may still be charging you for them. And the 9903.05 charge that looks just like them is a Section 301 measure that took effect on 24 July 2026, is lawfully owed, and must be kept out of any claim. Pull the entry list, split it by Chapter 99 series, sort by liquidation date, and take that to your broker.

Related guides

• Do Section 232 and Section 301 stack? — worked examples of the real all-in rate.
• Two nearly identical parts, two different duty rates — where the base-rate money is, by sector.
• How to audit your company's HTS codes — the six-step review these findings feed into.

References

• Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States, USITC — 2026 Revision 19, effective 15 September 2026. All Chapter 99 headings and rates quoted above were read from this release.
• CBP — IEEPA frequently asked questions, including the refund process and the Chapter 99 headings involved. The primary source; check it before acting.
• CBP — liquidation, which sets the clock every deadline here runs from.
• 19 U.S.C. § 1514 — protests against CBP decisions, and the 180-day window.
• US Court of International Trade — the forum once the protest window has closed.
• Supreme Court of the United States — Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, decided 20 February 2026.

A note on sourcing

The Chapter 99 headings, rates and effective dates in this article were read directly from the USITC schedule and are reproducible. The procedural details of the refund mechanism — which route applies at which point after liquidation, and what CAPE currently accepts — come from CBP guidance and from published practitioner commentary, and those sources do not entirely agree with one another, partly because the process has been revised more than once since February. Where this article describes procedure it describes the shape of it, deliberately, and points you at CBP for the operative detail. We would rather be vague and right than precise and out of date.

This article is general information about the US tariff schedule and publicly reported customs procedure. It is not legal advice, it is not a customs ruling, and it is not a determination that your company is owed anything. Vectelos is not a licensed customs broker and does not file entries, protests or refund claims. Refund eligibility depends on facts specific to each entry. Consult a licensed customs broker or a customs attorney before filing. Positions in this area are actively being litigated and may change after the date of publication.