CAPE Phase 3 Gets a Launch Date: October 6. Here Is Why That Date Matters Less Than Who Qualifies

On September 15, 2026, CBP's Executive Director of Trade Programs Brandon Lord filed a declaration with the Court of International Trade confirming that Phase 3 of CAPE, the tool processing refunds of tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, will deploy on October 6, 2026. This is the piece of CAPE covering finally liquidated entries, and after a summer of delay, it now has a date attached to it.

The date is real progress. It is also not the most important thing in the declaration. This post covers the current refund numbers, exactly what Phase 3 does and does not cover, why eligibility is litigant-only, and what that means for anyone with finally liquidated IEEPA entries who has not yet filed suit.

Where the numbers stand

As of 3 p.m. ET on Friday, September 11, 2026, CBP reported that approximately 27.2 million entries carrying IEEPA duties had been processed through CAPE since the program launched in ACE on April 20. That volume accounts for $134.7 billion in both potential and certified refunds.

For the same period, 20,184 refunds totaling approximately $1.3 billion have not been transmitted to the Treasury Department because ACH banking information has not been provided by the importer of record or its authorized CBP Form 4811 designee. This is the same friction point CBP flagged in its August update, and it remains a solvable problem: any importer who has filed a CAPE declaration and has not confirmed their ACH Refund Authorization in the ACE Importer sub-account should do so, since that registration is what actually releases a completed refund.

What Phase 3 covers

Phase 3 addresses entries that have been liquidated for more than 80 days, a category commonly referred to as finally liquidated entries. These are entries that aged out of the standard administrative modification windows, including the 90-day voluntary reliquidation window under 19 U.S.C. 1501, and represent a substantial share of the IEEPA duties paid throughout 2025 on both the fentanyl and reciprocal tariff actions. Phase 1, which launched April 20, covered unliquidated entries and entries within 80 days of liquidation. Phase 2, launched June 29, opened reconciliation-flagged entries. Phase 3 is the mechanism for the entries that fell outside both of those categories because too much time had passed.

Why Phase 3 is litigant-only

This is the detail that separates Phase 3 from Phases 1 and 2, and it goes back to a legal position the Department of Justice has held throughout this litigation.

The government's consistent position has been that CBP lacks statutory authority to reliquidate a finally liquidated entry, or issue a refund on one, without a specific court order directing it to do so. On July 17, 2026, CIT Senior Judge Richard Eaton issued an order addressing this directly. The order directs CBP to reliquidate, without regard to IEEPA duties, any and all of the plaintiffs' entries that have been liquidated for more than 80 days on which those plaintiffs made estimated IEEPA deposits. Judge Eaton's order stated plainly that this order provides the government with the legal authority it had said it needed.

The critical word is plaintiffs. The order applies only to companies that had filed cases seeking IEEPA tariff refunds at the CIT, part of a group of roughly 3,700 cases that had been transferred to Judge Eaton's docket. It does not extend to importers that never filed suit.

Per CBP's September 15 declaration, participation in Phase 3 requires an importer of record to be a plaintiff with a pending case at the CIT, and that plaintiff must have provided CBP with their importer of record number. Plaintiffs who submitted a valid importer of record number to CBP by July 30, 2026 will be able to file CAPE declarations for Phase 3 as of October 6. CBP has said it will provide additional instructions to plaintiffs who provided their importer of record number after that date, but the confirmed October 6 start applies specifically to the July 30 group.

This restriction is still being contested

Whether CBP's litigant-only approach to Phase 3 is legally correct remains an open question. The CIT had previously issued a broader, universal order requiring refunds for all entries, including finally liquidated ones, regardless of whether the importer had filed a complaint at the CIT. The government appealed that portion of the order, arguing that CBP cannot be compelled to refund non-litigating importers. That appeal is currently pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and it has not been resolved.

This matters because the current framework, litigant-only participation in Phase 3, is not necessarily the final word. If the Federal Circuit rules against the government's position, the eligible population for Phase 3 refunds could expand. If it rules in the government's favor, the current restriction likely holds. Neither outcome is guaranteed, and the timeline for a Federal Circuit decision is not something importers can control or reliably predict.

A parallel track: class certification

There is a separate development worth tracking alongside the appeal. On August 6, 2026, the CIT heard oral argument on a motion filed by the Liberty Justice Center to certify a nationwide class under Rule 23(b)(2) in the underlying case, V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. United States. The motion seeks to allow importers to recover refunds on finally liquidated entries without each one filing an individual lawsuit. As of this writing, the CIT has not ruled on that motion. If certified, the class could open a path to recovery for non-litigating importers separate from the appeal outcome. But this remains pending, with no timeline for a decision.

The deadline risk for importers who have not filed

This is the point that deserves the most attention from any importer sitting on the sidelines. Relying on the pending class certification motion or the Federal Circuit appeal to eventually resolve in your favor, without taking any protective action yourself, carries real risk. Filing deadlines under the CIT's residual jurisdiction, 19 U.S.C. 1581(i), run as early as February 2027 for some entries. If that deadline passes before the class certification question or the appeal is resolved, an importer that waited may have lost the ability to file at all, regardless of how either open legal question ultimately comes out.

For importers with meaningful exposure in finally liquidated entries, the decision about whether to file an individual §1581(i) action now, rather than wait, should be made with customs counsel and should account for that February 2027 window specifically.

What to do now

If you are already a plaintiff in one of the roughly 3,700 pending CIT cases, confirm that your importer of record number was submitted to CBP, and note whether it was submitted by July 30 or after, since that affects your specific timeline. Watch for CBP's instructions to plaintiffs' counsel regarding the CAPE declaration submission process.

If you have finally liquidated entries with IEEPA duty exposure and have not filed suit, treat this as an active decision point rather than something to defer. The February 2027 deadline for some entries under §1581(i) is real, and the pending Federal Circuit appeal and class certification motion may not resolve before that date.

If you have filed CAPE declarations under Phase 1 or Phase 2 and have not received confirmation of a completed refund, check your ACH Refund Authorization status in the ACE Importer sub-account. With $1.3 billion currently stuck at Treasury for exactly this reason, this remains one of the most common and most fixable gaps in the entire process.

We are helping clients assess CAPE status across all three phases, confirm ACH setup, and think through whether a protective CIT filing makes sense given their specific finally liquidated entry exposure. Reach out to your ShipTech account manager for a current review of your situation.