CAPE Portal Launch: What April 20 Meant for Retailers

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Last updated April 11, 2026 — by AmyFay Chandler

On April 20, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is opening a new online tool called CAPE — Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries — and it is going to release the largest tariff refund window in modern American import history. Roughly $166 billion in IEEPA-based tariffs were collected from about 333,000 importers across 53 million entries between February 2025 and the Supreme Court ruling that struck them down. Ninety-seven percent of US importers are small businesses with fewer than 500 employees. Most of them have no idea that any of this is happening.

This is going to be the story in retail and small business circles by mid-summer, and it’s worth understanding what’s actually about to happen, what it means for you, and what to do this week if you want to be in the first wave of refund claimants instead of the last.

What CAPE actually is

CAPE is a new module inside the existing ACE Portal at ace.cbp.gov. CBP designed it specifically to handle the flood of IEEPA refund claims they know are coming — essentially a simplified, batch-friendly version of the customs protest filing process that has historically required customs attorneys and brokers to navigate.

The big innovation: instead of filing a traditional customs protest for each entry — which has historically required customs attorneys and brokers to navigate — CAPE lets you batch-file via a single CSV Declaration uploaded through your ACE Secure Data Portal account. Historically, each refundable line had to be itemized on a paper-style protest, which is part of why so few small businesses ever filed protests in the past — the paperwork was prohibitive. CAPE is CBP’s acknowledgment that the refund window is unprecedented in scale and that the old process would have collapsed under the volume.

If you’ve ever filed a customs protest the old way, the difference is going to feel like switching from filing taxes by hand to using TurboTax. If you’ve never filed one, you’re about to be the lucky generation that didn’t have to learn the hard way.

Who is eligible to file

The CAPE refund window only covers tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) — the legal authority the Supreme Court ruled the previous administration improperly used. In practical terms, that means:

The “reciprocal” tariffs (the country-specific retaliation duties)
The “fentanyl” or “trafficking” tariffs
The “baseline” tariffs imposed under the same emergency declaration

It does not cover Section 232 tariffs (steel, aluminum, autos) or Section 301 tariffs (China-specific). Those were imposed under different legal authority and are still in effect — and they’re not part of this refund window.

If you’re not sure which tariffs you actually paid, your customs broker can tell you in twenty minutes. Or you can run the Tariff Refund Eligibility Checker and get a rough answer in 90 seconds.

How much money is actually on the table

The macro numbers are staggering: roughly $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs collected from about 333,000 importers across 53 million entries, plus 6% interest accruing on every dollar from the date of original payment. Ninety-seven percent of US importers are small businesses with fewer than 500 employees. The Center for American Progress found the average small-business importer paid around $306,000 more in tariffs in the year ending February 2026 than the year before — and mom-and-pop firms (fewer than 50 employees) paid about $175,000 more.

For most independent retailers reading this, the real number is going to be much smaller. If you imported $20,000 of goods in 2025 and IEEPA-coded duties were 15% of that, you’re looking at a $3,000 refund — plus roughly $270 in interest by the time you receive it in late summer or fall. Not life-changing, but not nothing either, and certainly worth the few hours of paperwork.

For larger independents who run multi-store operations or who source heavily overseas, the refunds can reach the $50,000+ range. Those are the cases where hiring a customs broker is worth it.

What April 20 actually looks like

Here’s what we know about how the launch is going to unfold, based on CBP’s published guidance documents and the Q&A sessions they’ve been running with the trade community:

Monday, April 20, sometime in the morning Eastern time: Phase 1 of CAPE goes live inside ACE. There is no separate portal — you log into ACE the way you always have, navigate to the new CAPE module inside your ACE Secure Data Portal, and file a Declaration by uploading a CSV listing your eligible entries.

Important Phase 1 caveat: the April 20 launch is limited to certain unliquidated entries and entries within 80 days of liquidation. More complex cases — older entries that have already liquidated past that window, entries with complicated protest histories — will be handled in later CAPE phases that CBP hasn’t yet scheduled. If your entries don’t fit Phase 1, you’re not locked out of refunds, but you’re not filing on April 20 either. Check your 7501 dates before you start.

Days 1-7: the portal will probably be slow and crash-prone. This is what happens to every new federal IT release on launch day. CBP has been load-testing for months but the actual volume on day one is going to be unprecedented. Don’t panic if the page hangs or you get error messages. Try again in a few hours.

60 to 90 days after your Declaration is accepted: refunds are issued. That’s CBP’s own stated timeline — 60 to 90 days from acceptance to payment, unless a compliance concern kicks off further review. For the earliest filers with straightforward entries, that means refunds arriving in July.

Larger and more complex claims will take longer — likely into fall or later as CBP rolls out subsequent CAPE phases.

The single most important thing you can do this week

If you think you might be eligible for an IEEPA tariff refund, start your ACE Portal account setup today. The setup process takes three to four weeks. If you wait until April 20, you’re going to be staring at the launch of a tool you can’t access yet, and the filers who started their accounts in early April are going to be ahead of you in the refund queue.

Setting up the account doesn’t commit you to anything. If you decide later that the refund isn’t worth the paperwork, you can simply not file. But if you do want to file, you cannot do it without the account, and the account cannot be rushed.

I have a step-by-step guide to setting up an ACE account in the previous article in this series. It takes about an hour of your time on day one and zero time after that until your verification email arrives.

What about businesses that bought from US distributors

If you’re a retailer who buys all your inventory from US-based wholesalers and distributors, you cannot file a CAPE claim directly — the refund flows to the importer of record, which is your supplier, not you. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore April 20.

Tariff costs were almost certainly absorbed into your wholesale prices throughout 2025. Your suppliers are about to receive refunds on costs you helped pay. The question is whether they’re planning to share any of those refunds with their wholesale customers.

The answer for some suppliers will be “yes, here’s a credit on your next order” or “we’re lowering wholesale pricing by X% effective May 1.” The answer for other suppliers will be silence, or vague non-answers about how tariffs were a small part of their cost structure. You don’t get to know which is which unless you ask.

I have a copy-paste email you can send to your top wholesale suppliers — it’s polite, specific, and doesn’t put anyone on the defensive. Drop your email below and I’ll send it to you for free, along with the Morning Retail Tidbit each weekday.

What I’ll do on April 20

I’m going to be watching the CAPE portal launch in real time. I have brand contacts filing on day one, and I’m going to know within hours how the portal is actually performing. I’ll send a one-line note to my email list that morning — it’s live, here’s the link, here’s what’s working and what’s broken — and I’ll follow up over the next few weeks as the real picture emerges.

If you want that note, drop your email below. The Morning Retail Tidbit ships each weekday with one short paragraph on what’s happening in independent retail, and the CAPE launch coverage lands in the same inbox.

Get the April 20 launch alert →

xoxo,
♥ AmyFay

This guide is general information, not legal or customs advice. Consult a licensed customs broker or trade attorney for high-value claims or complex situations. Rules change — verify with CBP before filing.