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After spending much of last year navigating a complex and ever-changing global tariff environment, organizations are starting to see relief in the form of refunds. The reverse flow was triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) didn’t authorize the administration to impose tariffs.
In its official ruling, SCOTUS struck down the IEEPA tariffs. The case was then sent back down to the Court of International Trade, which forced U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to stop collecting tariffs on affected imports. It also had to refund duties that had already been paid on eligible entries.
Importers were quick to request refunds. So far, Reuters says CBP has processed (as in, certified and then sent to the U.S. Treasury for disbursement) roughly $100 billion in IEEPA tariff refunds, out of the roughly $166 billion that was collected. Those figures came from a sworn CBP status report filed with the U.S. Court of International Trade earlier this month.
Taking Aim At Disallowed Tariffs
Organizations are talking up the tariff refund checks they’re expecting and the ones they’ve already received. Target got a particularly big chunk back, according to the company’s second quarter corporate earnings conference call. The company says its Q2 results included a $994 million pre-tax benefit from tariff refunds.
Also on the call, the company highlighted the toll that tariffs took on its 2025 margins, noting that its “4.6% full-year adjusted operating margin rate in 2025, which represented a significant step back versus historical rates reflected our investment in value in the face of meaningfully higher tariff costs we faced.”
Target is in good company. According to ABC News, companies ranging from Amazon to small businesses are “now reporting that the payments from the federal government have landed in their accounts.” For example, Amazon recently revealed that it had received a $600 million refund and Apple said it received a $2.2 billion refund.
In its Q1 2026 earnings report, Ford said it was recognizing a one-time IEEPA tariff benefit of $1.3 billion, while Nike mentioned a $986 million benefit in its most recent earnings transcript. More recently, John Deere announced that it got back $110 million in tariff refunds during the most recent quarter.
Will Any of it Trickle Down?
Whether the refunded money will trickle down to the individuals or companies that paid higher prices to offset those tariffs remains to be seen. Some organizations are talking openly about their intentions. For example, AP says some consumers are receiving refunds from shipping companies like UPS, DHL and FedEx. “The refunds are being rolled out in phases based on what date they were paid,” it reports. “Shippers have said they’ll return the refunds on a rolling basis as they receive them.”
As for the major retailers, AP says they may give back some refunds “but mostly will use them to lower prices.” Unlike shippers who collected tariffs directly from customers, it adds, “most big retailers passed on tariffs in indirect ways, changing their product lineups or partly absorbing higher costs, making a consumer refund unlikely.”
And in a recent call with investors, Amazon said it has “identified a limited set of circumstances where we can trace that we pass specific import charges on to customers,” and that in those circumstances it plans to “proactively contact affected customers and automatically issue refunds to them.” In other cases, the e-tailer will use the refunds to lower prices for its customers, AP adds.
In many cases, CNN says it’s nearly impossible to figure out how much of a company’s tariff refund came out of consumers’ pockets. That’s because multiple rounds of tariffs were layered in with those struck down by the Supreme Court.
“So, even when a company raised prices, it can be difficult to determine which tariffs those increases were designed to cover,” it adds. “Adding another wrinkle: Many businesses didn’t pass the full cost of tariffs on to shoppers in the first place, absorbing some of the impact themselves.”
