Plan emerges for $166 billion in tariff refunds. But don’t hold your breath

By CNN Newsource

Published March 6, 2026 12:46 pm

By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN

(CNN) — A system to process at least $166 billion in tariff refunds could be up and running in 45 days. That’s the alternative to a manual process that could take 4 million hours, according to a senior US Customs and Border Protection executive.

However, it’s still anyone’s guess as to when the more than 330,000 US importers who paid the levies as part of President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade agenda will see those funds.

Last month the Supreme Court struck down the bulk of the sweeping global tariffs Trump enacted. In a court filing on Friday, Brandon Lord, executive director of Trade Policy and Programs at CBP, said the agency is “making all possible efforts” to have a new automated process requiring “minimal submission from importers” ready in 45 days.

The updates are necessary to manage the “unprecedented volume of refunds” CBP was ordered to process by a Court of International Trade judge this week.

Nintendo, Costco, Fedex and thousands of other businesses sued the government in an effort to get tariff refunds, but that may not now be necessary. Instead, under the new system, importers would file declarations listing all the instances they paid the now-invalidated duties, Lord said. The government would verify that information to calculate the potential refund for importers.

“CBP will provide guidance on how to file to refund declarations in the new system,” Lord said.

“This looks to be a very positive development for importers,” Matt McGill, a trade attorney and partner at King & Spalding told CNN Friday.

No word on when refunds will hit

In the 13-page court filing Friday, Lord didn’t offer any estimations for when importers could actually see tariff payments returned if they follow all the steps he laid out.

Prior to Friday’s filing, the Trump administration had not detailed how it would process these refunds. It often said it would defer to the lower courts since the Supreme Court verdict did not offer any guidance on the issue.

Immediately following the ruling, Trump told reporters he believed that it would need to be litigated “for the next two years” and that it could take five years for refunds to be processed.