IEEPA Tariff Refunds for Apparel Importers: What You May Be Owed

This page is retrospective and procedural: what happened to entries you already filed, and what you can still do about them. For what you pay going forward, see current US import duty rates and Section 301 tiers for clothing, and for the whole cost stack see the complete landed cost method for apparel imports. One warning up front, because it is the point of this article: nobody can currently tell you with confidence that you will get your money back. Content that says otherwise is selling something. This is informational only and is not legal advice.

What the Supreme Court struck down on 20 February 2026, and what it left open

In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc., decided 20 February 2026, the Supreme Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the imposition of tariffs. That invalidated the "reciprocal" tariffs imposed under Executive Order 14257 and the trafficking and immigration tariffs applied to Canada, Mexico and China.

The reasoning split. Three justices reached the result through the major questions doctrine and three through ordinary statutory interpretation, with three in dissent. For an importer, that split matters less than what the Court did not do.

The Court did not address refunds. It did not hold that duties collected under the invalidated orders must be returned, did not set a procedure, and did not set a deadline. There is no automatic refund mechanism, no CBP-initiated reliquidation programme announced as of 16 August 2026, and no settled answer to whether importers who were not parties to the litigation can recover. That is the honest state of play, and it is the reason this article is short on promises.

Which of your apparel entries are potentially affected

Only one layer of duty is in question. Everything else on the same entry was assessed under separate authority and is not touched by the ruling.

What is and is not at issue on an apparel entry filed during the IEEPA period.

The practical scope is therefore entries filed roughly between April 2025 and February 2026 that carry a reciprocal or trafficking tariff line. Identify them from the Chapter 99 subheadings on each CBP Form 7501, not from the season or the shipment.

Worked example: separating the layer at issue from the duty you still owe

Take a brand importing cotton knit tees from India, classified in 6109.10.00 at a 16.5 percent general rate, with $400,000 of entered value across a set of entries filed while India's reciprocal rate stood at its 50 percent peak.

Two readings fall out. The exposure is $200,000 on $400,000 of goods, which is why this is worth doing carefully rather than writing off. And the recoverable figure is emphatically not "the tariffs I paid" — it is one specific Chapter 99 line, entry by entry, at whatever rate applied on that entry date. India's reciprocal rate moved over the period, dropping to 18 percent under the 6 February 2026 interim framework shortly before the whole basis was struck down, so a single blended percentage across a year of entries will be wrong.

The three procedural tools importers are using

Following the ruling, trade counsel broadly advised importers to preserve records and use three mechanisms. None of them is a refund claim in itself; each is a way of keeping an entry from becoming final while the position develops.

Which tool fits which entry is a legal judgement about your specific facts, and the statutory deadlines attaching to each should be confirmed with counsel against the current regulations rather than taken from any article, including this one.

Liquidation timing is what actually decides whether you recover anything

This is the single most useful thing to understand, and it has nothing to do with the merits of the Supreme Court decision.

An entry is not final when the goods clear. It becomes final when it liquidates, which is CBP's final computation of duties owed. Before liquidation an entry is still amendable. After liquidation, and after the statutory protest window closes, it is closed, and no subsequent change in the law reopens it.

So the population of entries you can still act on shrinks every week, automatically, whether or not anyone files anything. An importer who does nothing is not holding a position; they are watching one expire. Conversely, an importer whose entries are open, documented and reconciled is in a position to act quickly if CBP publishes a pathway or if litigation produces one.

That is why the first task is not "file a claim." It is: pull every entry, record its liquidation status and date, and find out how many are still open. Most brands cannot answer that question today, and the answer is held by their customs broker. This is also the point at which importer-of-record structure matters, because if a foreign supplier or a DDP seller was the importer of record on those entries, the entries are not yours to protest. See who should be the importer of record for your brand.

The Section 122 refunds went only to the named plaintiffs

The interim tariff deserves separate treatment because it is the closest available precedent for how this can go.

After the IEEPA ruling, a 10 percent global tariff was imposed on 24 February 2026 under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, statutorily capped at 15 percent and 150 days. The Court of International Trade struck it down on 7 May 2026 in Oregon v. United States and Burlap and Barrel, Inc. v. United States, by 2 to 1. It limited refunds to the named plaintiffs. The Federal Circuit then issued an administrative stay on 12 May 2026, and CBP continued collecting until the tariff expired on 24 July 2026.

The lesson for apparel importers is not that refunds are impossible. It is that a court invalidating a tariff and a court ordering your money back are different events, and the gap between them has already been demonstrated once this year.

What to preserve now

Whatever the eventual pathway, it will require entry-level documentation, and it will require it fast. Assemble and hold, organised by entry number:

• Entry summaries (CBP Form 7501) for every entry filed April 2025 to February 2026, showing all Chapter 99 lines
• The full broker entry file and ACE data, including entry date, liquidation status and liquidation date
• Commercial invoices and packing lists, with the goods value separated from freight
• Proof of duty payment, by entry
• Purchase orders and proof of payment to the factory, which support the entered value
• Classification support for each style, since a refund review is also a classification review; see how an apparel HTS code is determined
• MPF and HMF detail, which is unaffected but needs to be excluded cleanly from any claim figure; see MPF, HMF and the other customs fees on an entry

Place a hold on destruction of these records. The cost of keeping them is trivial against the exposure in the worked example above.

Be sceptical of anyone quoting you a refund figure

A refund estimate is easy arithmetic and a refund entitlement is an unsettled legal question. Those are not the same product, and several vendors are currently selling the first as if it were the second.

Three questions to put to anyone offering to recover IEEPA duties for you. Which of my entries are unliquidated, by entry number? What is the statutory basis on which a non-party importer recovers, given that the Supreme Court did not reach the question? And what happened to non-party refunds in the Section 122 litigation? An adviser who answers all three plainly is worth listening to. Terms used above are defined in the Yarnstick glossary of sourcing and customs terms.

This article is informational and is not legal advice. Tariff classifications, duty rates and admissibility determinations are fact-specific — verify against the current HTSUS and consult a licensed customs broker or trade counsel before relying on any figure here.

Frequently asked questions