CAPE Portal (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries)

The CAPE Portal (Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries) is a new module within CBP's Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) system, purpose-built to handle the massive IEEPA tariff refund operation ordered by the Court of International Trade on March 4, 2026.

Why CAPE Was Built

After the Supreme Court struck down IEEPA tariffs on February 20, 2026, the CIT ordered CBP to refund approximately $166 billion in duties collected across 53 million entries from 330,000 importers. CBP told the court that its existing ACE systems could not process refunds at this scale — each entry would need to be individually reliquidated, a process that would take years.

CAPE was designed to solve this by automating and consolidating the refund process.

How CAPE Works

The CAPE system performs four key functions:

Entry Validation — Identifies and validates all import entries where IEEPA tariffs were assessed, cross-referencing entry summaries against tariff authority codes
Duty Recalculation — Automatically recalculates the correct duty amount for each entry by stripping out IEEPA tariff components while preserving duties under other authorities (Section 301, Section 232, etc.)
Importer Aggregation — Consolidates refund amounts across all eligible entries for each importer of record, producing a single refund figure rather than millions of individual transactions
Payment Processing — Issues refunds via ACH (Automated Clearing House) direct deposit to importers' registered bank accounts

Timeline and Status

CBP requested 45 days from March 6, 2026 to build CAPE, targeting a launch around mid-April 2026. The system is being developed by CBP's Office of Trade in coordination with the Office of Information Technology.

Requirements for Importers

To receive CAPE-processed refunds, importers must:

Have an active ACE Portal account with current contact information
Have ACH banking details on file with CBP for electronic payment
Ensure their importer of record number is correct across all affected entries

Importers who do not have an ACE Portal account should apply immediately at ace.cbp.dhs.gov, as registration can take several weeks.

Relationship to ACE

CAPE operates as a specialized module within the broader ACE ecosystem. While ACE handles day-to-day entry filing, duty payment, and trade compliance, CAPE is specifically designed for the one-time (but massive) task of IEEPA refund processing. Once refunds are complete, CAPE's functionality may be retained for future large-scale reliquidation operations.