What is CSMS #68536553 and why does it matter for my CAPE refund?

CSMS #68536553 is the May 4, 2026 CBP message that named the four ACE reports importers and brokers should use to monitor CAPE refund claims through the full lifecycle: ES-022 (CAPE Entry Summary), REV-603 (Trade Refund), REV-613 (ACH Rejected Refunds), and REV-615 (CAPE Details Refunds). It also confirmed that ACH disbursements could begin as early as May 12, 2026. If your team is filing CAPE Declarations and not pulling these four reports, you have no operational visibility into where your refunds actually are.

Which ACE report do I run first to confirm my CAPE Declaration produced a refund record?

Start with ES-022 — the CAPE Entry Summary Report. It is the first report that links a CAPE Declaration number to the underlying entry summaries and to refund claim identifiers, and it separately breaks out principal and interest. If an entry you submitted does not appear in ES-022 with a refund claim ID, the refund pipeline never started for that entry — most likely because the Declaration failed validation or the entry was excluded from Phase 1.

What does REV-603 tell me that ES-022 doesn't?

REV-603 is the Trade Refund Report. Once an approved CAPE refund moves to Treasury for disbursement, REV-603 tracks its 'Refund Secondary Status' through stages including Sent to Treasury, Treasury Issued, Funds Diverted, and Check/ACH Returned. ES-022 confirms the refund exists in CBP; REV-603 confirms what Treasury did with it. If your refund is showing 'Funds Diverted' or 'Check/ACH Returned,' you have a payment-stage problem that ES-022 alone will not surface.

When should I pull REV-613 specifically?

Pull REV-613 (ACH Rejected Refunds Report) when REV-603 shows a refund as rejected or returned, or proactively if your team has any concern about ACH enrollment status. REV-613 isolates refunds that were rejected because of ACH enrollment problems — incomplete banking info, an inactive ACH account, or a payee mismatch. As of mid-May 2026, CBP filings at the CIT confirmed that 1,880 consolidated refunds were stuck because importers of record had not provided ACH information. REV-613 is the diagnostic report for that failure mode.

Do I need a special ACE permission to access these four reports?

Yes. All four reports live under the ACE Reports module for Importer sub-account users. If your trade compliance team uses ACE Portal under a Filer or Organizational Broker sub-account, the Importer sub-account user with refund-monitoring responsibility will need permissions enabled by your ACE Portal account administrator. CBP also recommends setting up recurring report scheduling so the reports are emailed automatically — that is the single highest-leverage operational change a compliance team can make this quarter.

Track Your CAPE Refund in ACE: ES-022, REV-603, REV-613, REV-615

If your team has filed even one CAPE Declaration, four ACE reports now exist that will tell you exactly where each refund claim is in the lifecycle — from CBP validation, through Treasury disbursement, all the way to ACH credit (or rejection). On May 4, 2026 CBP published CSMS #68536553 — “CBP Offers Multiple ACE Reports for Monitoring CAPE Refund Claims”, confirming the four report names by ID and confirming that ACH refund disbursements could begin as early as May 12, 2026.

This guide walks through what each of those four reports actually shows, the order to run them in, and the most common failure mode each one catches.

Importer pulling ACE Portal reports to monitor a CAPE Phase 1 refund claim through validation, Treasury disbursement, and ACH credit

Why CBP Published Four Reports, Not One

CAPE refund processing has four distinct stages, and a refund can break at any one of them:

Submission and validation — your CAPE Declaration is uploaded, file-validated, and entry-validated.
CBP refund record creation — accepted entries are linked to a refund claim with principal and interest amounts.
Treasury disbursement — CBP transmits the approved refund to Treasury for payment.
ACH credit — Treasury attempts to ACH the funds to the bank account on file for the importer of record.

A single report can only show you one or two of those stages well. CBP designed the four ACE reports so that compliance teams could see the full lifecycle by combining them. Skipping any one of them leaves a blind spot.

ES-022 — CAPE Entry Summary Report

Where in the lifecycle: Stages 1–2 (validation through CBP refund record creation).

What it shows: Links between CAPE Declaration numbers, the underlying entry summary numbers, refund claim identifiers, and refund payment information. Critically, it separately identifies principal and interest on each approved refund — so you can reconcile expected recovery values against your accounting records.

Use it for: Confirming that an entry actually produced a refund record. If an entry you submitted does not show in ES-022 with a refund claim ID, no refund is in the pipeline for that entry.

Run it first. Every other report depends on the linkage ES-022 establishes.

REV-603 — Trade Refund Report

Where in the lifecycle: Stage 3 (Treasury disbursement).

What it shows: For each approved refund that has moved to Treasury, the report tracks the “Refund Secondary Status” through several states:

Sent to Treasury — CBP has transmitted the refund instruction.
Treasury Issued — Treasury has issued the payment.
Funds Diverted — the payment was redirected (typically because of a Treasury offset against another federal debt the importer owes).
Check/ACH Returned — the disbursement attempt failed and the funds were returned to Treasury.

Use it for: Catching disbursement-stage problems that ES-022 will not surface. A refund that shows as “Sent to Treasury” in REV-603 is in a different operational position than one showing “Check/ACH Returned” — the second one needs immediate intervention even though the underlying CAPE filing was correct.

CBP publishes a Quick Reference Card for REV-603 (and REV-613) at cbp.gov.

REV-613 — ACH Rejected Refunds Report

Where in the lifecycle: Stage 4 (ACH credit failure).

What it shows: Refund claims rejected specifically because of ACH enrollment deficiencies — incomplete banking information, an inactive ACH account on file, or a payee mismatch between the IOR (or designated 4811 notify party) and the bank account record.

Use it for: Diagnosing the single most preventable CAPE refund failure mode. As of CBP’s May 12, 2026 sworn declaration to the Court of International Trade, 1,880 consolidated refund batches were stuck because the importer of record had not provided valid ACH information. REV-613 is where those refunds appear. If a refund shows up here, the CAPE filing was correct — the money simply cannot land. (For the underlying mechanics of fixing ACH enrollment, see ACH enrollment is required for IEEPA refunds.)

REV-615 — CAPE Details Refunds Report

Where in the lifecycle: Stages 3–4 (entry-level reconciliation).

What it shows: Entry-summary-level detail tied to CAPE Declarations that have been transmitted to Treasury. Where ES-022 confirms the refund record exists at CBP and REV-603 tracks the Treasury status, REV-615 lets you reconcile individual refund line-items back to specific entries on the original CAPE Declaration.

Use it for: Audit trail and accounting reconciliation. Once funds start moving, REV-615 is the report finance teams will need to match received ACH credits back to the entries that generated them.

The Practical Sequence

CBP and trade-law commentary converge on this operational order:

Step	Report	Purpose
1	ES-022	Confirm CAPE Declaration → entry → refund linkage exists.
2	REV-603	Check Treasury disbursement status for each refund.
3	REV-615	Reconcile entry-level refund details once funds are moving.
4	REV-613	Run separately whenever you suspect ACH rejection is the blocker.

A team that pulls all four on a recurring schedule will catch problems within days rather than weeks. CBP recommends configuring automated email delivery for these reports through ACE Portal’s recurring report scheduling — the highest-leverage operational change a compliance team can make this quarter.

What These Reports Do Not Show

A few important limits, so you know what to watch outside ACE:

Phase 2 entries. None of these reports will show refunds for entries excluded from Phase 1 (reconciliation, drawback, finally liquidated more than 80 days ago, AD/CVD pending, open or suspended protests, Type 08 / Type 23). For those, see What to do if your entries are outside CAPE Phase 1 and Finally liquidated IEEPA entries: the CIT litigation path.
Section 122 refunds. The 10% surcharge collected since February 24, 2026 is a separate statute and a separate refund track — see Section 122 10% tariff refunds.
Appeal-stage risk. The government’s June 6/7, 2026 deadline to appeal Judge Eaton’s underlying refund order could affect refund timing if a stay is granted on appeal. Track that separately.

Three Things to Do Before Friday

Confirm Importer sub-account ACE access for whoever is responsible for CAPE refund monitoring. Filer or Organizational Broker sub-accounts will not see all four reports.
Run ES-022 today for every CAPE Declaration you have submitted. If an entry is missing, you need to know why before assuming it is in the refund queue.
Set up recurring report scheduling for all four reports so they are emailed automatically. Manual retrieval is the slowest possible failure mode.

If you are unsure whether your CAPE Declarations are positioned for the earliest refund window, request a CAPE assessment — we can walk through the four-report check with a vetted trade-law partner.

Disclaimer: This guide explains a CBP-published operational reference. It is not legal advice. CAPE refund eligibility, protest decisions, and litigation strategy depend on facts specific to your entries — consult a qualified U.S. trade-law professional.