On April 20, 2026, CBP opened Phase 1 of CAPE — the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries — the new module inside the ACE Secure Data Portal that accepts CSV-formatted IEEPA refund declarations. It is the first live, official refund channel for duties that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in February. For importers who fit the Phase 1 profile, CAPE is fast, cheap, and the right answer. For everyone else — which is still the majority — it is not a channel at all.
This post walks through what Phase 1 actually covers, the segments it leaves outside, and why Tariff Spot’s protest service continues to be the only live route for the importers CBP has not yet built a path for.
What launched on April 20
CAPE Phase 1 sits inside the existing ACE portal. An importer (or their authorised customs broker) assembles a CSV declaration with entry numbers, IOR information, Chapter 99 HTS lines, and duty amounts paid, and submits it through the portal. CBP has said approved declarations should produce refunds within 60 to 90 days via ACH.
That is the happy path. The Phase 1 eligibility rules are where the honesty starts:
- The entry must have a Chapter 99 IEEPA duty declared
- The entry must be unliquidated, or liquidated within the last 80 days (CBP’s voluntary reliquidation window)
- There must be no open or suspended protest on the entry
- The entry cannot be AD/CVD, reconciliation, drawback, or USMCA deferral
- The importer must hold an ACE Portal account and be ACH-enrolled with CBP
Anything outside that window is excluded from Phase 1. CBP has said Phase 2 will pick up finally-liquidated entries and more complex scenarios; it has not published a timeline.
How the launch is actually going
In the first week of Phase 1, about 56,000 importers registered claims — against an estimated 330,000 importers owed refunds. That is roughly 17% of the eligible market. The other 83% either have not heard, have not set up ACE, or have discovered they are outside the Phase 1 window.
The portal itself has been uneven. Widely reported: duplicate-tax-ID errors locking accounts, four-hour hold times with CBP support, and intermittent “high volume” outages through week one. The CBS News coverage and the NPR write-up captured the chaos in plain terms. Most of that is launch noise and will settle. The structural limits of Phase 1 will not.
Who CAPE actually reaches
It is worth mapping the real universe of owed importers against Phase 1’s eligibility gate. The refund pool is ~$166 billion across ~53 million entries affecting ~330,000 importers. Not all of them sit in the same place.
- US importer, ACE holder, entry within 80 days. CAPE is the right answer. It is faster and cheaper than any alternative. We do not compete here and do not try to. If you are in this segment, go file a CAPE declaration.
- US importer, no ACE, entry within 80 days. Technically CAPE-eligible once they set up an ACE account and enrol in ACH. In practice, that is a several-day onboarding process, the portal is congested, and many of these importers have one or two entries and no staff to burn on it. A protest is a one-step alternative.
- US importer, entry more than 80 days past liquidation. Outside Phase 1. Phase 2 will eventually reach them; CBP has not said when. The 180-day protest deadline is indifferent to that timeline.
- Foreign importer, no ACE, no US bank. Outside Phase 1 by design. CAPE requires ACE access and ACH enrolment, neither of which a foreign importer without a US bank account can satisfy without separate setup. CBP is not relaxing either requirement.
Put the segments together and the picture is straightforward: CAPE shrinks the “pure convenience” wedge of the refund market — ACE holders within the 80-day window — and leaves the harder segments exactly where they were.
Where Tariff Spot still fits
We are not trying to out-compete CAPE on the segments CAPE serves well. That would be bad for importers. What we do is cover the segments CAPE has not built a path for:
- Foreign importers without ACE or a US bank. We generate the CBP Form 19, look up the correct port of entry, print the required four copies, and mail them from our Casper, Wyoming address. CBP decision notices come back to the same address; we forward digitally. The importer provides bank details; we do not touch refund money. The full mechanics are in our foreign importer guide.
- Entries more than 80 days past liquidation. Until Phase 2 is announced and scoped, a protest under 19 U.S.C. § 1514 is the only live statutory mechanism for these entries, and the 180-day deadline is jurisdictional. We unpack the finality mechanics in the 180-day deadline guide.
- Protest-as-insurance filings. An entry with a timely-filed protest on record cannot become final while the protest is open. For importers who are waiting on Phase 2 and are nervous about finality, a flat-fee protest is a small hedge against a large downside. The argument is laid out in the protest-as-insurance post.
- Importers who just want it done. Some US importers with a single entry or two have looked at the ACE onboarding, the ACH enrolment, and the current portal congestion, and decided a flat $14.99 “fill the form and mail it for me” service is worth more than the faster CAPE refund timeline. That is a rational trade. We do not talk anyone out of CAPE if CAPE fits them.
One important tension: protest vs. CAPE
CAPE Phase 1 explicitly excludes entries with open or suspended protests. That creates a real decision point for importers whose entries are within the 80-day window and who do have ACE: filing a protest with us on one of those entries blocks CAPE access for that entry until the protest is closed.
Our rule is simple and honest: if you are within 80 days of liquidation and you already have ACE and ACH set up, file through CAPE and skip the protest. If you are not, or you are unsure, a protest is the insurance policy. CBP has told importers they can withdraw an active protest to switch to CAPE, so the choice is reversible — but it is better to pick the right channel the first time.
What to watch from here
- Phase 2 scope and timing. Once CBP publishes a Phase 2 announcement that covers finally-liquidated entries, the stranded-cohort segment collapses. The longer Phase 2 takes, the more protests make sense as the active route.
- ACE/ACH policy softening. There is a narrow waiver process for non-US importers citing “foreign infrastructure limitations” (email FRN-ACHREFUNDSUPPORT@CBP.DHS.GOV). Waivers have been rare so far. If CBP opens this up, foreign importers gain a direct CAPE path.
- Government appeal of the CIT refund order. The Atmus Filtration order is appealable. An appeal would not touch the protest channel — protests are grounded in a separate statute — but it could slow CAPE disbursements.
The honest summary
CAPE is real. It is not enough. Phase 1 serves roughly the top-of-the-pyramid importers — US-domiciled, ACE-enrolled, ACH-set-up, within 80 days of liquidation. The rest of the 330,000 importers owed refunds are still waiting on Phase 2 or still outside CAPE’s eligibility rules entirely. For that majority, the protest channel under 19 C.F.R. Part 174 is the live route, and the 180-day clock is running.
If your entries sit outside CAPE Phase 1 — foreign importer, past the 80-day window, or just not set up for ACE — the protest is the path. Start a refund claim and we take care of the mailing.