What the April 28 CIT Order Reveals About CAPE Phase 1 — and the Four Pain Points You Need to Plan For
A new CIT order quietly published CBP's first hard numbers on CAPE Phase 1: 21% of IEEPA entries accepted, 3% already liquidated, first refund near May 11. Here are the four pain points the court documented and what to do.
A quiet but consequential filing dropped late on April 28: a Court of International Trade order containing the first hard numbers the public has on how CAPE Phase 1 is actually performing. The order is short — two pages — but it confirms three things every importer chasing an IEEPA refund needs to know, and surfaces four operational pain points that until now had only circulated as anecdote.
This post walks through what is in the order, what is in the underlying CBP declaration, and what to do about each item before CBP’s next progress report on May 12.
Primary Sources (PDF)
We mirror these public CIT filings for reader convenience. The canonical source is the federal docket on CourtListener / PACER.
- CIT Order — April 28, 2026 (Euro-Notions Florida, Inc. v. United States, Ct. No. 25-00595, ECF No. 27): cit-order-cape-phase-1-april-28-2026.pdf
- CBP Declaration of Brandon Lord — April 28, 2026 (ECF No. 26, the underlying data source): cbp-declaration-cape-phase-1-april-28-2026.pdf
- Docket on CourtListener: Euro-Notions Florida, Inc. v. United States
The Three Numbers That Matter
From the April 28 order, citing Mr. Lord’s sworn declaration:
| Metric | Value as of April 28, 2026 |
|---|---|
| Share of total IEEPA entries accepted through CAPE for duty removal | ~21% |
| Share of total IEEPA entries liquidated through CAPE and in refund stage | ~3% |
| Anticipated date of first refund issued via Treasury | on or about May 11, 2026 |
These percentages are the first publicly verifiable measurement of Phase 1 throughput. A few read-throughs:
- 21% accepted in eight days is a meaningful pace, but it also implies roughly 79% of in-scope entries are still in some pre-acceptance state — either not yet declared, stuck in validation, or held up on broker / importer-of-record clarity.
- 3% liquidated confirms what CBP has been signaling: the gap between accepted and paid out will dominate the Phase 1 experience for most importers, which is why getting through CAPE acceptance is necessary but not sufficient. ACH enrollment, importer-of-record alignment, and clean liquidation are what move you from the 21% bucket to the 3% bucket.
- May 11 is now court-cited, not just CBP rumor. Sandler Travis & Rosenberg first reported the date publicly on April 29, but Judge Eaton’s order makes it part of the litigation record.
The Four Pain Points the Court Documented
The order recaps a closed conference held the same day in which CBP and trade-bar participants discussed users’ real-world experiences. Four operational issues made the order in writing:
1. ACE access — long wait times to reset usernames and passwords
If your team’s ACE Portal credentials are stale, you are competing for the same CBP support queue as every other importer trying to file CAPE declarations. Treat ACE access as a week-zero task, not a week-of-filing task. If your trade account owner needs to be updated, follow the April 24 process for updating the trade account owner on an existing ACE Portal account before you touch the CAPE workflow.
2. Over-registration at CBP training events
CBP training sessions on CAPE filing are filling beyond capacity. Plan around recordings and written guidance rather than competing for live seats. Our step-by-step CAPE submission guide and CSV preparation guide are written specifically so a customs team can self-onboard without depending on a live CBP webinar.
3. Confusion identifying the correct importer to make a CAPE declaration
The court documented confusion about which entity is authorized to submit the CAPE declaration for a given entry. The simple rule: the importer of record (IOR) on the underlying entry — or a licensed customs broker the IOR has authorized — is the only party permitted to file. Foreign importers and parties operating through reseller structures need to confirm the IOR mapping before filing. See our foreign importer of record CAPE refund checklist and customs broker authorization checklist for the IOR-clarity workflow.
4. Reconciliation entries — IEEPA duties still being collected
This is the most operationally significant new fact in the order. The court noted that importers reported IEEPA duties are still being collected on reconciliation entries when, for example, the value of an entry is increased and duties get adjusted upward. CAPE Phase 1 already excludes reconciliation entries, but the order makes clear that the broader reconciliation pipeline is not yet aligned with the post-IEEPA legal reality.
If you use reconciliation, this affects you. Three actions:
- Flag every reconciliation adjustment that triggers an IEEPA collection to your broker and trade counsel; do not let those payments become unrecoverable through inaction.
- File a protest under 19 USC § 1514 within 180 days of the underlying liquidation if a reconciliation adjustment results in IEEPA duties being collected on entries that should be IEEPA-free.
- Plan for a multi-channel recovery strategy — see CAPE vs protest vs CIT: which path fits your entries.
Open Question: Refund Interest Rate and Calculation Method
Participants at the April 28 conference also raised questions about what interest rate applies to refund amounts and how CBP calculates that interest. The court did not answer; instead, the order directs CBP to issue guidance, including by updating the FAQ section on its website.
Until CBP publishes that guidance, do not commit to a specific interest dollar figure for any individual entry — but document the underlying facts now so you can recompute later: entry date, IEEPA duty payment date, liquidation date, refund issuance date.
Two Dates to Watch
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| On or about May 11, 2026 | CBP expects to issue the first IEEPA refund via Treasury for accepted, liquidated CAPE Phase 1 declarations. |
| Tuesday, May 12, 2026 — 12:00 p.m. EDT | CBP must file the next progress report with the CIT. Closed settlement conference at 2:00 p.m. the same day. |
The May 12 progress report is the next opportunity for hard numbers to enter the record. We will update this post and the CAPE Phase 1 details page once that filing is public.
What To Do This Week
A short, ranked checklist for the 10 days between now and May 11–12:
- Verify ACE Portal access for every team member who touches CAPE — don’t get stuck in the credential-reset queue.
- Confirm the trade account owner is the correct importer of record entity. If not, follow the April 24 update process.
- Verify the ACH refund account is active and tied to the IOR. Without it, you cannot receive a Treasury disbursement on May 11. See ACH enrollment is now required for IEEPA refunds.
- Audit any open reconciliation entries for ongoing IEEPA collections; flag and queue for protest if needed.
- File protective protests under 19 USC § 1514 within 180 days of liquidation for any liquidated entries, regardless of CAPE status.
- Calendar May 12, 2:00 p.m. EDT for the next progress report — that filing will reset assumptions for the rest of Phase 1.
Where to Get Help
If you are unsure where you sit in the 21% / 3% mix, or whether your reconciliation-related IEEPA collections are recoverable through CAPE, protest, or CIT litigation, our free assessment routes you to vetted trade law professionals who can review your entries against the latest guidance.
Update — May 3, 2026: First-Week Validation Numbers and Two New ACE Reports
Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg’s May 1, 2026 trade report (“Tariff Refunds Could Start Flowing Soon but Protests Still Important”) added detail on top of the April 28 order:
- 75,306 CAPE declarations were submitted in Phase 1’s first week. Of those, 47,315 passed file-level validation.
- The 11.2M / 21% entry-acceptance figure is at the entry-validation stage, and 2.1M entries were rejected for failing those validations.
- The 1.7M entries already liquidated and in the refund process equal about 3% of all IEEPA entries.
- Two new ACE reports are now available for tracking: ES-022 (CAPE claim status) and ES-701 (courtesy notice of reliquidation, beginning to show refund and interest calculations). See our ES-022 / ES-701 tracking guide for how to pull each one.
- ST&R also flagged that DOJ has until June 6, 2026 to appeal the CIT order directing IEEPA refunds — another reason to keep a protest in motion alongside CAPE.
Update — May 4, 2026: First Named-Company Refund Estimate
Ford Motor Co. became the first major importer to publicly quantify its expected IEEPA refund in its Q1 2026 earnings release on April 30, 2026, telling investors it expects to collect approximately $1.3 billion in U.S. government refunds for IEEPA tariffs and raising its annual guidance by $500 million to reflect the projected one-time tariff boost. The disclosure references duties Ford paid between March 2025 and February 2026 (CBS News / MSN coverage).
Two takeaways:
- CAPE Phase 1 numbers are real and material at the company level. Ford’s $1.3B is the first publicly disclosed CAPE-eligible refund estimate large enough to move quarterly guidance for a Fortune 50 importer.
- It does not change your filing posture. Ford’s number tells you the program is producing economically meaningful refunds; it does not tell you anything about your individual entries’ acceptance, ACH, or liquidation status. The May 11 / May 12 dates above remain the operative milestones for almost every other importer.
CBS News also reported (citing legal experts) that CBP has rejected roughly 15% of refund requests since CAPE launched, “likely due to clerical errors” — consistent with the 19% entry-validation reject rate cited in the April 28 CIT order, just measured at the declaration level rather than the entry level.
CBP FAQ Status — Court-Ordered Interest Guidance Still Not Published
We pulled the official CBP IEEPA Duty Refunds page directly on May 4, 2026. Every FAQ entry on that page carries a “Updated” timestamp of 4/10/2026, 4/15/2026, or 4/17/2026 — none have been updated since April 17. Independently, the official CSMS RSS feed shows no new CAPE or IEEPA-refund messages between May 2 and May 4 (the most recent CAPE-specific CSMS remains #68396594 from April 20).
That matters because the April 28 CIT order specifically directed CBP to publish guidance on the interest rate and calculation method by updating its FAQ. As of May 4, that update has not posted. Practical takeaway: do not delay your CAPE submission waiting for CBP’s interest methodology — file now, document entry/payment/liquidation dates, and recompute interest when the guidance eventually posts.
This post summarizes a public Court of International Trade filing. We are not a law firm and this is not legal advice. For decisions affecting specific entries, consult a licensed customs broker or trade attorney.