U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is developing a new feature within the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system called Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) to manage duty drawbacks associated with IEEPA tariffs.

The creation of this mechanism responds to the need to process a high volume of refund requests following court decisions related to these tariffs. In an update filed with the U.S. Court of International Trade on March 12, 2026, CBP reported progress in the technical development of the system.

Currently, the different modules of the CAPE system are at different stages of development, with estimated progress levels between 40% and 80%, depending on the component.

_
How will the return process work?

The CAPE system is structured in four main phases, designed to automate the management of return requests.

The expected operation of the process is as follows:

• Submission of the request (Claim portal)
  Importers or their customs agents will submit the request for drawback through a specific portal within ACE, uploading the data of the entries concerned.
• Entry validation
  The system will perform automatic validations to check the completeness of the submitted file and verify that the declared entries exist and contain the corresponding IEEPA tariff codes. In case of error, the application may be corrected and resubmitted.
• Duty recalculation and reprocessing
  Once the entries have been validated, the system will remove the IEEPA tariffs and automatically recalculate the applicable duties, including interest.
• Refund payment
  After settlement or re-settlement of entries, the system will process the refund of overpaid amounts. Payments will be consolidated by importer and electronically transferred to the designated account.

_
Planned schedule and initial scope

The return mechanism is not yet operational, as CBP continues to develop the functionality within ACE. Based on current estimates, the system could be available in approximately 45 days, subject to completion of technical developments and release of operational instructions.

Implementation will be progressive. In the first phase, the system will process most entries with IEEPA tariffs, although some more complex categories -such as certain operations subject to anti-dumping duties or with special status in ECA- will be left out initially and incorporated in later phases.

CBP plans to issue additional operational guidance and further updates as the deployment of the system progresses and the portal is made available for submission of applications.

Our partner Arola is closely following the upcoming official communications from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the court, and will keep us informed of any relevant developments related to the implementation of the system and the duty drawback procedure.