There is $175 billion sitting in US Customs refundable accounts right now. The portal to claim it opened on 20 April. The first refund cheques start landing on 12 May. Most indie beauty founders I speak to have never heard of it.
Here is what happened, who is eligible, and what to do this month.
What happened
The US Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA-based tariff regime in February 2026. The ruling was narrow but specific: tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, used aggressively across 2025 to apply elevated duties on imports from China, South Korea, Brazil, and several other markets, were not lawfully authorised. The decision triggered a refund mechanism for any importer who paid the elevated tariffs in good faith.
On 20 April, US Customs and Border Protection launched CAPE - the Customs Automated Refund Portal - to handle claims. As of late April, more than 75,000 businesses have filed and 47,000 claims have been approved. First refund payments start 12 May 2026. (Source: BeautyMatter, National Desk)
The window is active. There are deadlines per entry type. Refunds are not automatic. The importer of record has to file per-entry claims, supported by the original entry summary and proof of duty payment.
Why this matters for indie beauty
Two things sit underneath the typical indie beauty supply chain that make the refund material.
First, primary packaging. Glass, aluminium, pumps, droppers, caps, secondary boxes - the vast majority of beauty primary packaging is sourced from China or South Korea. A 2024 Beauty Independent survey put indie beauty packaging China-sourcing at roughly 55%. Brands that imported packaging directly, or paid a contract manufacturer who imported it on their behalf, paid the IEEPA tariff. That tariff is now refundable.
Second, formulation inputs. Korean actives, Brazilian botanicals, Chinese silica, and a long tail of speciality ingredients moved through the same elevated-tariff regime. If your contract manufacturer or your packer-and-filler imported these inputs and passed the tariff through to your invoice, you paid it.
Third, finished goods. Brands that finish abroad and import to the US for distribution paid the tariff on the finished unit, not just the components. The refundable amount per entry is correspondingly larger.
A brand doing $2 million in imported inventory in 2025, where 30% of cost was in tariff-affected sourcing, could be looking at high-five to low-six figures in refundable duties. That is real cash. That is a quarter of marketing spend, or a stock buffer, or a payroll month.
Who is eligible
The eligibility test is simple. If your business was the importer of record for goods entering the US between roughly February 2025 and February 2026, and the entry incurred a duty line that was charged under the IEEPA-based tariff schedule, you have a claim.
Two practical complications.
If your contract manufacturer or 3PL was the importer of record (their EIN on the entry summary), they hold the claim. You need to chase them to file or to assign the refund to you. Some manufacturers will, some will not. The contract is the lever; the relationship is the lubricant.
If you imported through a customs broker, your broker should already be running a refund work-stream for affected clients. Ring your broker this week. Ask the question: "Are you filing CAPE claims on my behalf? What's the timeline?" If they say no or do not know, that is a flag worth acting on.
What to file
Per entry, the claim consists of: the original entry summary (CBP Form 7501), proof of duty payment, the line items affected by the IEEPA tariff, the calculated refundable amount, and the importer of record's identifying details. CAPE accepts the claim package digitally. Most brokers can submit dozens of claims per hour; the bottleneck is usually pulling the original entry data, not the filing itself.
Two things commonly trip up indie brands.
First, the entry data is held by the broker, not the brand. Founders looking at their own bank statements will see the duty payment but cannot reconstruct the entry without broker support. Get the broker to pull the entries before you start the maths.
Second, the IEEPA tariff is a line on the entry, not the whole duty. The brand can only claim the IEEPA-attributable portion, not the full duty paid. Most refund estimators online lump everything together. The accurate number is on the entry summary.
The realistic timeline
Filing through CAPE: 24 to 72 hours per claim batch.
CBP processing: stated as "within 30 days" but the realistic window is 30 to 60 days for the first wave (May to July) and likely 90 days from August onward as volume catches up.
Cash in your bank: typically 30 days after CBP approval, paid via electronic deposit to the importer of record.
For a brand filing claims through May, refund cash should land between mid-June and mid-September. Plan accordingly. Do not bank the refund until it lands.
What to do this week
Three things, in order.
Ring your customs broker. Ask whether they are running CAPE refund work for clients. If yes, ask for an estimate of your refundable amount. If no, switch brokers or hire a customs consultant to run the claim work specifically.
Pull your 2025 entry summaries. Either through your broker or through your ACE (Automated Commercial Environment) account if you have direct CBP access. Sum the IEEPA-attributable duty lines. That is your maximum refundable amount.
Prioritise the high-value entries. Refund work has fixed cost per entry. If your supply chain involved many small shipments, the cost-benefit may not hold for every one. Prioritise entries above a threshold (typically $500 in IEEPA duty paid) and run those first.
Why this is uncomfortable for some founders
The honest part of this conversation is that some indie founders ignored or denied the IEEPA tariff impact through 2025. They absorbed the cost rather than re-pricing, took a margin hit, and kept building. Now there is a refund window, and going back to 2025 to reconstruct what was paid feels like reopening a closed file.
Reopen it. The cash is there. The filing is operational, not strategic. The brands that file in May get paid in June. The brands that wait until July get paid in October, if at all - the deadlines per entry type tighten through 2026.
Where this puts beauty brands strategically
Beyond the immediate cash, the refund window is a useful operational signal. Brands that have clean customs records, an organised broker relationship, and traceable supply-chain entries can move on the refund quickly. Brands that do not have those things cannot. The same operational discipline that lets you file a CAPE claim in May is what lets you file an MoCRA renewal on time, an EU CPNP notification before launch, and a Cult Beauty due diligence pack within twenty-four hours of a buyer asking.
Customs refunds are a stress test for the operations layer underneath the brand. The brands that pass it are using the refund. The brands that fail it are leaving the cash with the government.
If your operations layer is stretched and you would rather have someone else run the refund work alongside the rest of your compliance and ops setup, speak to us about an Operating Leverage review. We do not file your customs claims directly. We make sure the broker, the data, and the deadlines line up so the claim actually happens.
This post is not legal or customs advice. For binding guidance on a specific entry, speak to a licensed customs broker or trade attorney.