US Customs Agency Says It ‘Is Not Able To Comply’ With Court Order To Refund Trump Duties

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a filing with a Court of International Trade on Friday that it would be unable to comply with an earlier order to refund tariffs on importers’ customs paperwork, citing challenges.

• The agency said large volumes of import entries, system limitations, and extensive manual intervention to carry out the refunds would pose challenges. 
• The CBP said that as of March 4, 2026, more than 330,000 importers had made over 53 million entries related to the IEEPA duties, with collections amounting to about $166 billion. 
• The CBP also said that it is working to create a new automated refund system that it expects to be ready for use in 45 days.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a filing with a Court of International Trade on Friday that it will not be able to comply with an earlier order to refund tariffs on importers’ customs paperwork.

The customs agency cited large volumes of import entries, system limitations, and the requirement for extensive manual intervention to carry out the refunds as challenges to comply with the order.

The filing comes in response to an order from Judge Richard Eaton from the New York federal trade court from earlier this week instructing the CBP to permit imports without ​assessing President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court earlier this year, and to issue refunds to importers.

“For the reasons explained…CBP is not able to comply with the Court of International Trade’s order of March 4, 2026…,” the filing said.

CBP’s Obstacles

The CBP filing said that as of March 4, 2026, more than 330,000 importers had made over 53 million entries related to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) duties, with collections amounting to about $166 billion. Of these, about 20.1 million entries were unliquidated as of the date mentioned earlier.

The customs agency also said that it is currently not equipped to separate IEEPA tariffs from other import duties, and doing so would require manual intervention, which would require about 4.4 million hours. A diversion of staff for this purpose would severely disrupt its other functions, the agency said, keeping it from continuing to “perform its mission, including its revenue protection mandate and its vital national security functions.”

Proposed Alternative

The CBP in the filing also said that it is working to create a new automated refund system to “streamline and consolidate refunds and interest payments on an importer basis, rather than issuing 53,173,939 separate entry-specific refunds” that it expects to be ready for use in 45 days.

Meanwhile, U.S. equities were trading in red on Friday at the time of writing. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, fell 0.92%, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ) declined 0.69%, and the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) was down 1.28%.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around the S&P 500 ETF was in the ‘neutral’ territory at the time of writing.

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