How to Update the Trade Account Owner on an Existing ACE Portal Account (April 2026 Process)

If you set up your ACE Portal account years ago and the original Trade Account Owner has since left the company, you may have a quiet problem waiting to surface as soon as CBP starts disbursing IEEPA refunds.

CBP released a modernized ACE Secure Data Portal account application on April 1, 2026, and the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (NCBFAA) published the specific April 24, 2026 process for updating the Trade Account Owner on existing active ACE Portal accounts. With first IEEPA refund disbursements signaled to begin as early as May 11 (per Sandler Travis & Rosenberg), this is the right week to get the update in motion.

This guide walks through who needs to do it, why it matters for CAPE refunds specifically, and the step-by-step.

Who Needs to Run This Process

You need to update the Trade Account Owner if any of the following is true:

• The original Trade Account Owner has left the company and never transferred the role
• The company changed legal name, was acquired, or restructured since the ACE account was created
• The ACE account was set up under a former broker relationship and you now need to bring it in-house
• You have already tried to change the ACH refund recipient in ACE and the change did not stick

If your current Trade Account Owner is still with the company and active in ACE, you do not need to run this process — but it is still worth confirming who the listed owner is. A surprising number of importers discover during this kind of audit that the listed owner is two CFOs ago.

Why It Matters for CAPE Refunds

CAPE declarations can be submitted by an authorized customs broker — see our Customs Broker Authorization Guide — but the refund itself flows back through the ACE account associated with the importer of record (IOR) or the designated 4811 party. The recipient’s ACH information lives on that account, and changes to that account can be blocked when the Trade Account Owner of record is no longer reachable.

That creates a failure mode importers do not normally think about: a properly filed and accepted CAPE declaration can still produce a refund that cannot be paid out, because the ACH recipient field cannot be cleanly updated.

This sits alongside the broader ACH enrollment gap covered in our ACH enrollment post — but it is a separate, narrower problem that affects a specific subset of importers (typically those with older ACE accounts).

The Step-by-Step Process

Below is the high-level workflow. The actual application form is on the ACE Secure Data Portal under the modernized account application released April 1.

Step 1 — Identify Your Current Trade Account Owner

Inside ACE, open the Account view for your importer account and locate the Trade Account Owner field. Capture the name, email, and date of last login if visible. If you cannot determine who the current owner is from inside ACE, your broker can usually pull this for you.

Step 2 — Decide Who the New Trade Account Owner Should Be

The new Trade Account Owner should be:

• A current employee of the importer of record entity
• Senior enough to make administrative decisions about ACE access (typically Controller, CFO, Trade Compliance Director, or VP of Operations)
• Available to respond to CBP follow-up during the application review

For a mid-sized importer, this is usually the same person who would sign a power of attorney to a customs broker.

Step 3 — Complete the Modernized ACE Account Application

Open the modernized ACE Secure Data Portal account application (released April 1, 2026) and complete the Trade Account Owner update flow specifically. You will provide:

• Identifying information for the departing Trade Account Owner (or documentation that the person is no longer with the company)
• Identifying information for the incoming Trade Account Owner
• Supporting documentation for the change (typically a letter on company letterhead authorizing the transfer, plus identity verification for the incoming owner)
• Confirmation that the IOR number, EIN, and legal entity name on the ACE account match current records

Step 4 — Coordinate With Your Broker During the Review Window

While CBP processes the update, your customs broker should:

• Pause any pending ACE account changes that depend on the Trade Account Owner (especially ACH refund recipient changes)
• Continue submitting CAPE declarations on entries where the data is already correct — the declaration itself is broker-filed and does not depend on the owner update completing first
• Flag any Accepted with Error(s) statuses tied to ACH or recipient mismatches; some of those will resolve as soon as the owner update lands

For broker handoff specifics, our broker authorization guide covers the underlying coordination model.

Step 5 — Re-verify ACH Refund Account After the Update Lands

Once CBP confirms the Trade Account Owner change has been processed, the new owner should immediately:

1. Log in to ACE
2. Verify the ACH refund account on file for the IOR
3. Update banking information if the previously listed account is closed, frozen, or wrong
4. Re-pull Claim Status on every CAPE declaration submitted in the prior weeks

This last step matters because some declarations that previously stalled on a recipient mismatch can move forward once the underlying account is clean.

How This Connects to the May 11 Disbursement Signal

CBP signaled that the first IEEPA refund disbursements could begin as early as May 11, 2026. Importers who need the Trade Account Owner update almost certainly will not be in the first wave — there is not enough time for both the owner update and the ACH change to clear, plus a CAPE declaration cycle, before then.

That is fine. The objective is to be in the next wave with everything correct, rather than be in the first wave with a refund that cannot land. For the full disbursement timing picture, see First IEEPA refund payments could land May 11 →.

What This Does Not Solve

The Trade Account Owner update fixes administrative ownership of the ACE account. It does not:

• Move an entry into Phase 1 if it is excluded for substantive reasons (open protest, drawback, reconciliation, AD/CVD, final liquidation more than ~80 days ago)
• Substitute for filing a protest under 19 USC § 1514 within 180 days of liquidation
• Change which entity is the importer of record on existing entries

If your underlying problem is one of those — not an account-administration issue — the path is different. See What to do if your entries are outside CAPE Phase 1 → and CAPE, protest, or CIT — which path fits your entries →.

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Not sure whether your ACE account or refund recipient setup will hold up under CAPE? Get a free assessment → — a vetted trade-law professional will review your specific account configuration before the first disbursement wave.