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After the SCOTUS decision — what's still recoverable
The Supreme Court's 2025 decision invalidating the IEEPA tariffs did something legally significant and operationally limited at the same time. It settled the question of whether the tariffs were lawfully imposed — they were not. It did not, however, automatically refund anyone's money. The path from a Supreme Court ruling to a wire transfer in your business's bank account runs through a separate set of administrative and legal processes that each importer needs to navigate on their own.
For importers reading about the decision and trying to figure out what to actually do about it, the practical question is not whether you have a refund claim. The practical question is what's still recoverable now, what's already aged out, and how to move efficiently from settled law to received refund.
This article frames where things stand.
What the decision actually did
The Supreme Court ruled that the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the broad tariffs collected between early 2024 and early 2025 exceeded the statute's authority. The tariffs were not valid impositions of duty. The federal government collected money it had no legal basis to collect.
The legal consequence is that importers who paid those duties are entitled to refunds. This is the underlying right that everything else in the current recovery landscape rests on.
What the decision did not do is establish a process by which the government automatically returns the money. There is no automatic refund mechanism. There is no list the government is working through. Refund claims have to be initiated by importers, processed through CBP's administrative system or litigated at the Court of International Trade, and individually paid out as each claim resolves.
What's still on the table
The recoverable population today is large and substantial. Aggregate estimates put the total recoverable amount in the range of $60 billion or more, spread across roughly 330,000 affected importers. Per-business recoverable amounts vary widely — small importers may have recoverable amounts in the low thousands, while mid-sized importers commonly have recoverable amounts in the hundreds of thousands or low millions, and larger importers can have refunds running into the tens of millions.
Within that population, several factors determine whether any given importer's claim is still recoverable in practice rather than just in principle.
The first is entry timing. Tariffs paid during the IEEPA window between February 2024 and February 2025 are the core refundable population. Entries before or after that window may be subject to different authorities.
The second is liquidation status. Entries that have liquidated and are still within their 180-day Section 1514 protest window are administratively recoverable. Entries past their protest windows are generally beyond administrative recovery, though some preserved-rights situations remain available.
The third is the pathway available for the specific claim profile. Clean CAPE Phase 1 and Phase 2 claims have streamlined administrative paths. More complex claims need legal representation. Mixed claims need both.
The fourth is timing of action. Each month that passes shifts some entries from "recoverable" to "expired." For most importers, the earliest entries — often the largest in dollar terms — are at the highest risk of aging out.
What's already expired
Inaction has a cost that compounds. For importers who have not engaged on refund recovery, the earliest entries from the IEEPA window have either passed or are about to pass their 180-day protest deadlines. Those entries, in many cases, are no longer administratively recoverable, even though the underlying tariffs were invalid.
This is the hardest part of the current landscape to absorb. A business that paid IEEPA tariffs in good faith, watched the legal process play out, and assumed they would get their money back "when this all settles" is in a worse position today than a business that took action twelve months ago. The Supreme Court's ruling does not retroactively recover expired entries. The administrative timeline keeps running regardless of the legal posture.
What to do now
The practical sequence for an importer who has not yet taken action looks something like this.
First, get an honest assessment of your refund exposure. This means analyzing your customs entry records across the IEEPA window, identifying recoverable entries, and understanding which entries are still within actionable protest windows.
Second, sort the recoverable portion by pathway. Some of your entries likely fit CAPE Phase 1 or Phase 2. Some may need recovery counsel. Many will be mixed.
Third, engage the right professionals for each part of the claim. A customs broker or accountant for the administrative portion. A recovery attorney for the legal portion. A factoring partner if liquidity during the recovery window matters to your operations.
Fourth, move quickly on the entries closest to expiration. The earliest, often largest, entries are the highest priority because they have the least runway.
What Corvant does
Corvant analyzes your refund situation using AI-assisted multi-source qualification, identifies which entries are still recoverable, sorts them by pathway, and connects you with the professionals who fit each portion of your claim — coordinated so the pieces work together rather than against each other.
The legal question is settled. The clock is on you now.