IEEPA with Drawback: What to Know

Short answer: if an entry with IEEPA duties was ever tied to a duty drawback claim, CBP's CAPE system won't refund it yet. The guidance from CBP's IEEPA refunds office is to hold tight: a future phase of CAPE is expected to specifically address entries with prior drawback claims. Until that ships, those entries won't clear.

That's a different answer from the one some filers are getting from CBP's drawback side, which has suggested a withdraw-and-resubmit workaround. On the claims we've seen, that workaround hasn't worked, and right now it isn't worth the risk.

Lots of importers with drawback programs used IEEPA-dutied entries as the import side of their drawback claims. Before the Supreme Court ruled, drawback was the most direct way to get any of that money back without going to court, even with drawback capped at 99% of the duty paid.

Then the Supreme Court's Learning Resources decision (Feb. 20, 2026) held that IEEPA didn't authorize the tariffs, and CAPE became the better route for the IEEPA portion: 100% of the duty back plus interest. The problem is that CAPE was built to keep drawback-linked entries out, so it can't pay the same duty twice. Those entries are now caught between the two systems. The refund hasn't been denied. It's just parked, and for a mid-sized brand with a lot of IEEPA duty on its books, parked money is a working-capital problem.

Why CAPE rejects these entries. When CAPE launched, CBP published the validations it runs on every declaration. Two of them cover drawback: an entry summary "associated with a Drawback entry" and an "entry type 47 Drawback entry" both come back Not accepted (CBP CSMS # 68340863). Once an entry summary has been linked to a drawback claim in ACE, that link stays on the entry, and CAPE won't take it.

What the IEEPA refunds office is saying. CBP's IEEPA refunds team has been consistent. In September, it told us the drawback flag stays on the entry and that these entries "will be addressed in a future deployment of CAPE." Its current guidance is the same: sit tight, because a future CAPE phase is expected to deal with entries that carry prior drawback claims. CBP has also said publicly that it plans to expand CAPE in later phases to handle more complex scenarios like these (GHY International). No date has been announced. Phases 1 (April 20), 2 (June 29) and 3 (Oct. 6) all leave drawback-linked entries out.

What the drawback office has suggested. CBP's drawback side has offered a workaround: put the drawback claim into trade control in ACE, withdraw the drawback claim, then resubmit the entry through CAPE for the IEEPA refund. It sounds clean on paper. In practice, it hasn't cleared the flag. Evana, a duty recovery platform whose team of licensed customs brokers files CAPE and drawback claims for importers, has tried this route, and none of its claims has gone through so far.

Why the workaround is risky. Withdrawing a drawback claim gives up a filing you've already made, and the CAPE resubmission may still bounce because the flag hasn't cleared. If it does, you can end up with neither refund moving: the drawback claim is gone, and the IEEPA refund is still stuck. Drawback also runs on its own five-year clock, so pulling a claim and planning to refile later isn't free.

The open questions are timing and mechanics. CBP hasn't said when the drawback phase will deploy, whether held entries will need a brand-new CAPE declaration, or how it will handle entries where only part of the duty was claimed on drawback. Our read: plan on refiling those entries in CAPE once the phase opens, and keep your held-entry list current so you can move on day one. We'll cover the CSMS notice as soon as it's out. For background on the current release, see our CAPE Phase 3 explainer.

Not yet. CAPE rejects any entry summary linked to a drawback claim (CBP CSMS # 68340863), and Phases 1, 2 and 3 all leave these entries out. CBP's IEEPA refunds office expects a future CAPE phase to address them.

Not right now. CBP's drawback office has suggested putting the claim in trade control, withdrawing it and resubmitting in CAPE, but that route hasn't cleared any of Evana's claims so far. You risk losing the drawback filing while the IEEPA refund stays stuck.

No. CBP told us in September that the drawback flag stays on the entry and keeps it off a CAPE declaration, even after the entry comes off the claim.

CBP hasn't announced a date. New CAPE phases are announced through CSMS messages and on CBP's IEEPA duty refunds page.

File the CAPE declaration for the IEEPA duties before you designate the entry on a drawback claim. That's CBP's own sequencing guidance.

Got questions? Drop a comment below. Ask our licensed customs brokers, and they'll get right back to you here in the comments.