On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not give the president clear authority to impose tariffs. The decision held that while IEEPA lets a president regulate imports during a national emergency, it stops short of authorizing duties—and it upheld earlier rulings from the Court of International Trade and the Federal Circuit.

The practical effect is large: the ruling invalidated the legal basis for roughly $35.46 billion in duties collected across about 8.3 million entries. For importers who paid those tariffs, the question shifted overnight from “will we ever get this back?” to “how do we claim it?”

Here’s where things stand.

What the Court actually decided

The majority’s reasoning was narrow but consequential: emergency economic powers are not the same as the power to tax imports. Congress can delegate tariff authority, but it has to do so explicitly, and IEEPA doesn’t. That principle—that presidential tariff authority requires clear authorization from Congress—is the thread that ties this case to the lower-court decisions it affirmed.

Which tariffs are affected—and which aren’t

The ruling reached the tariffs that rested on IEEPA:

• IEEPA reciprocal tariffs
• The IEEPA “fentanyl” tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico
• Other IEEPA-based duties the Court’s language reaches, such as the additional 40% tariff on Brazil and the previously eliminated 25% “oil” tariff on India

Tariffs grounded in other statutes were left standing:

• Section 232 duties (steel, aluminum, copper)
• Section 301 duties
• The Section 122 global tariff that became the replacement mechanism

What replaced IEEPA

The administration moved quickly to fill the gap. The timeline ran in days, not months:

• February 20: the ruling issued, and the president signed an executive order winding down the IEEPA tariffs.
• February 23: CBP stopped collecting IEEPA duties.
• February 24: a 10% global tariff under Section 122 took effect as the replacement, with officials signaling a possible increase to 15%.

So the IEEPA tariffs went away, but a broad new duty arrived almost immediately. The legal exposure simply moved to a different statute—one now facing its own court challenge.

The refund picture

Refunds are being handled through CAPE (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries), the automated system CBP built inside the Automated Commercial Environment. Phase 1 launched April 20, 2026 and covers roughly 63% of eligible entries—those still unliquidated or liquidated within the prior 80 days. Reconciliation entries, drawback claims, entries under protest, finally liquidated entries, and AD/CVD entries are excluded for now.

As of mid-May, the scale was becoming visible. Reported progress as of May 11, 2026:

Metric	Figure
Estimated total refund (principal + interest)	~$35.46 billion
Entries liquidated/reliquidated without IEEPA duties	8,338,081
CAPE declarations submitted	126,237
Declarations passing file validation	86,874
Individual entries accepted	15,123,221
Refunds stuck for missing ACH details	1,880

CBP pointed to a 45-day processing target, but consolidates refunds by importer and liquidation date before sending them to Treasury for payment—so real-world timing may run longer than the headline number.

What importers should do now

A few steps protect both eligibility and timing:

• Set up ACE Portal access so refunds can be issued electronically.
• Confirm your ACH refund account. Nearly 2,000 refunds were already stuck simply because bank details were missing.
• Audit your entry data. Filing errors are common—roughly one in five entries—and each error risks a rejection.
• Calculate what you’re owed so you can reconcile refunds as they arrive.
• File protests on entries nearing the 180-day deadline. Liquidations become final 180 days after the liquidation date unless a protest is filed first.

That last point is the one with a hard clock. Miss the protest window on a finally liquidated entry and the refund right can disappear with it.

What’s next

The IEEPA chapter is largely settled, but the broader tariff fight isn’t. The Section 122 replacement is already being litigated, sector-specific duties under Sections 232 and 301 remain in force, and the refund machinery is still being stress-tested at scale. For importers, the near-term job is mechanical: get clean, get enrolled, and claim what the ruling put back on the table—before the deadlines close it again.