If you brought goods into the country during 2025, you paid tariffs the Supreme Court later threw out. In February the Court ruled 6 to 3 that the emergency powers law behind them never authorized tariffs at all. Since then the question has moved from whether the money comes back to when.
Importers I talk to are carrying the same two numbers this fall: a five or six figure refund claim on one side, a Q4 inventory bill on the other. The temptation is to let the first one pay the second.
Whether that works depends on which refund line you are standing in.
Where the refund money actually is
The short history, by date. February 20, the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs. March 4, the Court of International Trade ordered Customs to start refunding. CBP built a portal process called CAPE and opened it in phases starting in April. As of October 2 it had accepted $136.6 billion in refund requests and sent about $126 billion to Treasury for disbursement.
Nearly all of that early money belongs to importers who sued. Phase 3 opened October 6 and finally reaches entries that closed months ago, but only for plaintiffs with a pending trade court case who gave CBP their importer number by July 30.
October 8 changed the shape of the wait. The trade court certified a class covering importers who paid IEEPA tariffs between February 1, 2025 and February 19, 2026. Inclusion is automatic, no filing needed, and roughly $30 billion with no clear path home now has one. It also has a calendar problem: certification by itself does not authorize a single payment, the government is appealing, and reporting around the case puts realistic payouts in spring or summer 2027.
More than 300,000 importers paid these tariffs, most of them small businesses, which means most of them sit in the slow line. Roughly:
- You sued and registered your importer number by July 30: front of the queue, old entries included.
- You never sued but some entries are unliquidated or freshly closed: CAPE has accepted those requests since April. File them.
- You never sued and your entries closed long ago: you are in the class, automatically, on a court schedule that may run to mid 2027.
Ten minutes with your customs broker and your 7501 forms sorts every entry into a bucket. Worth doing this week, before any Q4 decision that assumes the money.
The 40 cent offer, and the other way to bridge
A pool this visible attracts buyers. The refund pot is estimated at $166 billion plus interest accruing around 5 to 6 percent a year, and funds are now purchasing claims outright, with reported offers between 20 and 60 cents on the dollar. To an importer staring at a November inventory bill, that call sounds like relief.
Run it as a number instead. A $100,000 claim sold at 40 cents brings $40,000 now and hands the buyer $60,000 of your recovery, plus the interest that keeps building until Treasury pays.
The other play is to fund the buy on its own math and leave the claim whole. A $60,000 draw on a business line of credit at a mid-teens rate costs roughly $4,500 if it rides for six months. An advance on the same $60,000 at a 1.20 factor costs $12,000, known up front, the way factor rates always price. Either number is a fraction of a $60,000 haircut.
The honest limit on that math: a bridge is a payment against your revenue whether or not Washington pays on schedule. The sale moves the waiting risk to the buyer. If your entries are tangled, or deposits cannot carry another debit through a slow February, selling part of the claim may genuinely be the better call. The mistake is signing a 40 cent deal without ever pricing the alternative.
One more thing the headlines pull in: cold calls. Money this public draws services charging upfront fees to “file” your refund and callers who need your ACE or bank login to speed things up. Nobody legitimate needs either. Your broker or trade counsel files through the actual process.
My read for most files: size the Q4 buy to what deposits can carry, and treat the refund as 2027 money. If it lands earlier, it retires the bridge early and the rest is yours, including the interest you did not sell.