The Section 122 global tariff expired by statute at 12:01 AM EDT on July 24, 2026 — and within the same moment, new Section 301 tariffs of 10–12.5% took effect on imports from 60 countries covering roughly 99.4% of all U.S. imports. There was no meaningful gap: President Trump signed the memorandum directing the action on July 23, and USTR implemented it the instant Section 122 lapsed. Separately, on July 17, CIT Judge Richard Eaton ordered CBP to reliquidate finally liquidated IEEPA entries for the roughly 3,700 companies whose cases are on his docket — the first court order giving CBP explicit legal authority to unwind refunds it said in May it lacked authority to touch, though it applies only to importers who already filed at the CIT. Here is everything importers need to know right now.
The Section 122 global tariff — the 10% surcharge that replaced the Supreme Court-invalidated IEEPA tariffs back in February — expired by statute at 12:01 AM EDT on July 24, 2026, exactly 150 days after taking effect, the hard statutory ceiling Congress set. There was no gap: on July 23, President Trump signed a memorandum directing USTR to impose new Section 301 tariffs of 10% or 12.5% on imports from 60 countries covering roughly 99.4% of all U.S. imports, based on a forced-labor enforcement investigation USTR had been running since March. The new duties took effect the same instant Section 122 lapsed. USMCA-qualifying goods from Canada and Mexico, and CAFTA-DR textile/apparel goods, are fully exempt; a narrow in-transit grace period covers goods already loaded and shipping before the cutoff, entered by July 28. Section 232 tariffs (steel, aluminum, copper, autos) are unaffected and continue as before. Separately, on July 17, CIT Senior Judge Richard Eaton ordered CBP to reliquidate finally liquidated entries for the roughly 3,700 companies whose IEEPA cases are on his docket — the first order giving CBP legal authority it said in May it lacked, though it does not extend to importers who haven't filed at the CIT. CBP must report Phase 3 progress to the court by 5:00 PM EDT on August 4. Meanwhile, CBP's most recent IEEPA status filing still shows $86.3 billion repaid and $121.75 billion accepted of the $166 billion pool.
Phase 2’s launch creates urgency, not closure. Phase 3 eligibility, protest rights under 19 U.S.C. §1514, and the permanent Section 301/232 tariff architecture give importers three sustained recovery and protection tracks regardless of how the appeal resolves.
The Section 122 global 10% tariff expired by statute at 12:01 AM EDT on July 24, 2026, its hard 150-day statutory limit. There was no gap: on July 23, President Trump signed a memorandum directing USTR to impose new Section 301 tariffs of 10% or 12.5% on imports from 60 countries — covering roughly 99.4% of all U.S. imports — based on a forced-labor enforcement investigation USTR concluded in June. The new duties took effect the same instant Section 122 lapsed. USMCA-qualifying goods (Canada, Mexico) and CAFTA-DR textile/apparel goods are fully exempt, along with 471 additional HTS subheadings USTR added after public comment. A narrow in-transit grace period covers goods already loaded and shipping before the cutoff, entered by July 28. Separately, Brazil was hit with its own distinct 25% Section 301 tariff effective July 22 — a different action, not part of the 60-country list. Section 232 tariffs (steel, aluminum, copper, autos) are unaffected.
Do not assume your landed costs dropped when Section 122 expired — for most importers they didn't, since the new Section 301 duty was ready to take its place the same instant. Confirm which of the 60 countries applies to your supply chain, check the exemption annexes, and recalculate your landed cost basis under the new Chapter 99 headings before your next entry.
On July 17, 2026, CIT Senior Judge Richard Eaton issued an order directing CBP to “reliquidate, without regard to IEEPA duties, any and all” entries that have been liquidated for more than 80 days, on which the plaintiffs made estimated IEEPA deposits. The order follows the recent transfer of more than 3,700 pending IEEPA cases to Judge Eaton's docket, and explicitly supplies the legal authority CBP said in May it lacked to reliquidate finally liquidated entries without an importer-specific court judgment. The order applies only to companies that already filed complaints at the CIT — it does not extend to similarly situated importers who have not filed their own case. CBP must file a Phase 3 progress report with the court by 5:00 PM EDT on August 4, 2026.
If you have finally liquidated entries and have not filed a CIT complaint, this order does not yet apply to you — you are still outside the door it just opened. This is the strongest signal yet that filing now, ahead of CAPE Phase 3's late-July launch, meaningfully improves your position. Talk to trade counsel about filing your own complaint before Phase 3 goes live.
In a July 13 status declaration to Judge Eaton, CBP reported that as of July 10, 2026, $86.3 billion in IEEPA refunds have actually been repaid to importers, with $121.75 billion total accepted for processing — up sharply from the $71.06 billion / $104.29 billion reported just two weeks earlier on July 1. At this pace, roughly half of the full $166 billion pool remains outstanding, with interest continuing to accrue on the balance.
The payment pace has visibly picked up since early July. If your CAPE Declaration was accepted in June, this is a good week to check your ACE portal status — processing on your entries may have moved faster than expected.
Counsel from the original Supreme Court litigation — the Liberty Justice Center alongside appellate attorney Neal Katyal — have filed a motion at the CIT seeking to certify a class of importers who paid IEEPA tariffs but are not currently eligible for refunds through CAPE. If certified, the class could recover refunds without each individual importer filing a separate CIT lawsuit, which is currently the government's position for finally liquidated entries. The government is opposing certification, and the CIT has not yet ruled.
This does not replace the value of filing your own protective action now, since certification is not guaranteed and could take months to resolve. But it is a second track worth monitoring closely if your entries are outside CAPE's current scope.
A Cato Institute analysis of CBP's own court filings found that the $104.29 billion in refunds approved as of June 29 covered only about 30% of all import entries on which IEEPA duties were paid, even though it represents roughly 60% of the total dollar value owed. In practice, this means the largest, highest-value entries — concentrated among large importers — have moved through CAPE fastest, while the much larger number of smaller-dollar entries, more likely held by small and mid-sized importers, remain in the queue.
If you are a smaller importer and your CAPE Declaration has been sitting in validation for weeks, this data suggests you are not alone — and reinforces the value of a clean, well-documented filing to avoid getting stuck further behind larger claims.
The public comment period on USTR's proposed Section 301 forced-labor tariffs closed July 6, 2026, with a public hearing held July 7. The proposal, covering roughly 60 trading partners, would impose 10% duties on countries with partial forced-labor enforcement regimes or existing reciprocal trade agreements (reportedly including Canada, Mexico, and the EU), and 12.5% on the remaining countries, including China, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. No effective date has been set, but the timeline closely tracks the Section 122 tariff's statutory expiration on July 24.
Do not assume your landed costs drop when Section 122 expires July 24. Model your exposure under the proposed Section 301 rates now, and confirm whether your goods qualify for any carve-outs before the replacement tariff takes effect.
Effective July 7, 2026 per CSMS #69127837, warehouse entries (Entry Types 21 and 22) are no longer accepted on a CAPE Declaration. Warehouse withdrawals (Entry Types 31, 32, 34, and 38) continue to be accepted, with refunds processed upon (re)liquidation of the associated warehouse entry. Warehouse entries accepted on a CAPE Declaration between April 20 and July 6 without a corresponding withdrawal submission will not be (re)liquidated with an IEEPA refund — filers in that position need a separate CAPE Declaration covering the withdrawals on which IEEPA duties were paid.
If you operate bonded warehouses or filed Type 21/22 entries on CAPE before July 7, audit your declarations now and refile on the withdrawals before your refund stalls. Flag warehouse activity in your free assessment.
CBP’s July 1 status declaration in Euro-Notions Florida v. United States reports that, as of June 29, 18.1 million entries had cleared file validation, 15.92 million had been liquidated or reliquidated without IEEPA duties, and approximately $71.06 billion in refunds (duties plus interest) had been certified and sent to Treasury for disbursement. The same filing shows the friction: 4.36 million entries failed entry-level checks — many for fixable reasons (importer/filer mismatches, entry-number formatting, CSV template misalignment) — and 8,384 certified refunds are sitting at Treasury solely because the importer of record (or its Form 4811 designee) never provided ACH banking information. As reported above, CBP's July 13 filing shows this pace has since accelerated to $86.3 billion repaid.
Money is moving — for importers with clean filings and complete ACH enrollment. If your declaration was rejected, most failure reasons are correctable on resubmission. If you filed and haven’t been paid, verify your ACH banking information in the ACE Portal today.
CAPE Phase 2 went live on June 29, 2026. Phase 2 covers reconciliation-flagged entries (types 01, 02, 06) that have not yet had a Type 09 reconciliation filing — but only where the entry is unliquidated or liquidated within 80 days of the CAPE declaration filing date. CBP’s Executive Assistant Commissioner for Trade, Susan Thomas, estimates Phase 2 covers approximately 2.8 million entries and $28.7 billion in potential refunds, bringing combined Phase 1 + Phase 2 coverage to roughly $130 billion of the $166 billion total. Reconciliation entries filed before roughly May 31, 2025 on a standard 314-day liquidation cycle will generally have liquidated more than 80 days ago and fall outside Phase 2’s scope. AD/CVD-flagged entries, previewed by trade counsel as part of Phase 2, were not included in the June 29 deployment and remain pending further CBP guidance.
If you have reconciliation entries from the earliest months of the IEEPA tariff period, do not assume Phase 2 covers them — confirm your liquidation dates and consider an individual CIT complaint in parallel. Start at tariffbureau.com/assessment for a free eligibility screening — we coordinate directly with a licensed customs broker to get your documentation filed.
Judge Eaton's Order to Show Cause hearing on June 9 ended without the CIT lifting its stay of the universal refund order. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott did not testify in person; the government instead filed a petition for a writ of mandamus at the Federal Circuit seeking to prevent the Commissioner from being required to testify, and CBP's Executive Assistant Commissioner for Trade, Susan Thomas, appeared in his place. The Federal Circuit granted the government's request to withdraw the mandamus petition on June 9, dismissing that proceeding. The hearing produced two key disclosures: CAPE Phase 2 (reconciliation entries) was confirmed for a June 29 launch, and Phase 3 (finally liquidated entries) was confirmed for late July — but limited to importers who have filed suit at the CIT. EAC Thomas also reported at the time that approximately $90 billion in IEEPA refunds had been accepted for processing, with roughly $23 billion transmitted to Treasury.
The government is actively contesting both the scope of the refund order and the procedural mechanics of enforcing it. Importers without a filed CIT complaint risk being excluded from Phase 3 entirely. Complete, well-documented Phase 1/2 submissions are processing fastest — incomplete filings are being deprioritized.
The Department of Justice filed notices of appeal of the CIT's universal IEEPA refund order at the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in early June 2026, consolidated under the lead case V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. United States, No. 26-1895. The government does not contest refunds on unliquidated or non-final entries — those continue processing under Phase 1 and 2. Instead, the appeal targets the order's application to finally liquidated entries for importers who never filed suit at the CIT, arguing the CIT's order amounts to an impermissible universal injunction. The government has indicated it may seek to retain an estimated $30 billion or more in IEEPA tariffs collected on those entries if its position prevails. The government's opening brief is due August 3, 2026 — the first confirmed date on the Federal Circuit's briefing schedule. A full merits decision is still expected to take considerably longer.
Importers who have not filed suit at the CIT and hold finally liquidated entries face the most exposure. File a protest under 19 U.S.C. §1514 where the 180-day window is still open, and evaluate an individual CIT complaint with trade counsel. The Tariff Bureau prepares documentation for these tracks on contingency and coordinates with your customs broker or trade counsel of record to file.
In a May 29 motion, CBP asserted for the first time that it lacks authority to reliquidate entries more than 80–90 days past liquidation without importer-specific court orders. This directly contradicted CBP's own published IEEPA FAQ, which had promised broader Phase 2 coverage. Judge Eaton denied CBP's motion to amend and ordered Commissioner Scott to appear June 9 (later superseded by the government's mandamus petition, which the government itself withdrew on June 9). As of late May, CBP had processed close to $90 billion in IEEPA refunds — over half the total pool.
If your entries include any finally liquidated entries (generally 80+ days past liquidation), do not wait for Phase 3. File a CIT complaint now through trade counsel. The Tariff Bureau can coordinate this referral. Contact us immediately.
On May 7, 2026, a divided CIT panel (2-1) held that the 10% global Section 122 tariff imposed via Proclamation 11012, effective February 24, 2026, exceeds the President’s authority — the proclamation did not identify a “balance-of-payments deficit” as Congress defined it in 1974. But the injunction and refund order apply only to the three plaintiff importers (Burlap & Barrel, Basic Fun, and the State of Washington). The government appealed on May 8, and the Federal Circuit issued a stay on June 11 — so Section 122 duties are still being collected from all importers while the appeal proceeds. The tariff expires by statute July 24, 2026 regardless of how the appeal resolves. Because Section 122 entries only began February 24, most will not reach final liquidation until roughly early 2027, leaving the 180-day protest window open well into next year.
No refund path is open yet for non-plaintiff importers — but the ruling is strong precedent. Document every Section 122 duty payment, consider post-summary corrections on unliquidated entries, and calendar protest deadlines. Flag Section 122 exposure in your intake.
CBP confirmed to the CIT that it was processing approximately $90 billion in IEEPA refunds accepted for processing — with approximately $23 billion completed and sent to Treasury for disbursement. Phase 1 ACH payments began May 12. The CBP CAPE system had accepted over 15 million individual entries and liquidated more than 8.5 million — compared with just 338,000 entries CBP processed for tariff refunds of any kind in all of the prior fiscal year. Importers with clean Phase 1 CAPE declarations and active ACH enrollment are receiving refunds now. Interest under 19 U.S.C. § 1505 continues to accrue at an estimated $650 million per month industry-wide.
Log into ACE and run the ES-022 report to check your CAPE declaration status, entry validation, and ACH payment tracking. If you haven't filed yet, Phase 1 capacity remains open.
Cato Corp (NYSE: CATO) reported Q1 2026 net income of $9.3 million vs. $3.3 million a year ago — a 3x increase management explicitly attributed to the company's IEEPA refund claim. EPS came in at $0.47 vs. $0.17. This is the clearest public confirmation yet that IEEPA refunds are material balance sheet events for mid-market importers — not just large multinationals. The Cato filing validates The Tariff Bureau's core thesis: every eligible importer should be filing, not waiting.
Senate bill S.3905, co-sponsored by Senator Hickenlooper (CO) and a bipartisan coalition, would require CBP to refund all IEEPA duties within 180 days of enactment with statutory interest — and create a priority queue for small businesses. Critically, this legislation would function as a backstop independent of the Federal Circuit appeal. A successful DOJ appeal would not defeat the bill's mandate if enacted. A separate coalition of 26 Senators wrote to CBP Commissioner Scott calling for fully automated refunds using CBP's existing data, bypassing the CAPE opt-in process entirely.
The post-IEEPA tariff landscape is organized around three authorities: Section 122 (expiring by statute July 24), Section 232 as the national security tool, and Section 301 as the country/policy unfair-trade tool. USTR has initiated sweeping Section 301 investigations targeting dozens of major trading partners for structural overcapacity in steel, autos, semiconductors, batteries, and chemicals, as well as forced-labor enforcement practices — the forced-labor proposal, covering roughly 60 economies, completed its public comment period July 6 and hearing July 7. Section 232 tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum remain in force. Vietnam was named a Section 301 priority earlier this year. Effective landed duty on China-origin goods now routinely exceeds 50%.
Tariffs are permanent. Importers need ongoing classification analysis, supply chain rerouting advisory, and Section 301/232 exposure monitoring — not just a one-time IEEPA refund claim. The Tariff Bureau's Phase 2 practice is built for this.
Gaia Dynamics analyzed over 300,000 IEEPA entry line items and found a 30% discrepancy rate in CAPE submissions. Common errors: wrong Chapter 99 HTS codes, entries not enrolled for ACH, CSV formatting errors, and mixing non-IEEPA entries in the declaration file. CBP has officially designated 2026 as "The Year of the Audit." CAPE submissions reopen historical entries to CBP scrutiny. A rejected declaration does not just delay your refund — it can trigger a full compliance audit of your import history.
CAPE Phase 2 is live and $86 billion has already reached importers. Importers with reconciliation entries should confirm eligibility and file without delay — entries outside the 80-day window need a parallel CIT filing strategy. Start your free assessment now — The Tariff Bureau handles eligibility screening, documentation, and preparation on contingency, and coordinates filing with a licensed customs broker.
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