The short answer
Some tariffs you paid in 2025 may be refundable. Many are not. The difference comes down to which legal authority the duty was charged under. The emergency tariffs imposed under IEEPA in 2025 are the ones courts have called into question, and those are where refunds are in play. The older Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods are still in force in 2026 and are generally not refundable. If you import and you paid duty last year, it is worth finding out which bucket your entries fall into, because the two are treated completely differently.
The two tariff layers people keep confusing
When importers say "the tariffs," they usually mean two separate things stacked on the same shipment.
Section 301 tariffs have been around since 2018. They target specific categories of Chinese-origin goods and run in tranches, with rates like 7.5% and 25%. They were imposed under a trade statute, went through a formal review process, and as of 2026 they are still being collected. Section 301 is the boring, durable layer. It did not go away, and a refund on it is rare. It happens only in narrow situations, like a granted product exclusion or a genuine misclassification you can prove.
IEEPA tariffs are the 2025 layer. IEEPA stands for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, an emergency authority. In 2025 it was used to impose broad new tariffs fast, and that speed is exactly what got challenged in court. This is the layer where the effective duty load on common categories shot up dramatically last year. It is also the layer where refunds are realistic, because if the authority to charge a duty is struck down, the money charged under it can become recoverable.
Same invoice, two different stories. That is why a blanket "are tariffs refundable" answer is always wrong. You have to split the entry.
What the courts actually did
Federal courts, including the Federal Circuit, found problems with how certain 2025 IEEPA tariffs were imposed. That created a path for importers who paid those specific duties to seek refunds. It did not erase Section 301. It did not refund every tariff anyone paid. And the legal picture can keep moving, including further appeals.
A court ruling does not automatically mail you a check. It opens a door. Whether your particular entries walk through it depends on what you imported, when, the country of origin, and which tariff line the duty was charged under. That is a paperwork question, not a vibes question. This page is general information, not legal advice.
So can you actually get a refund?
Honestly: maybe, and only for part of what you paid. Here is the conservative way to think about it.
- If you paid IEEPA emergency tariffs on 2025 entries, there may be recoverable money. This is the bucket worth chasing.
- If your duty was Section 301, assume it is not refundable unless there is a specific exclusion or a classification error in your favor.
- If you do not know which authority your duty was charged under, that is normal. It is on the entry summary, line by line, and most importers have never had a reason to read it that closely.
Nobody can promise you a number before they have seen your entries. Anyone who does is guessing. The real work is pulling your CBP entry data, matching each line to the authority it was charged under, and separating the recoverable from the not.
Who tends to have overpaid
If you are an Amazon FBA or Shopify importer bringing goods in from China, you are squarely in the group most likely to have paid the 2025 emergency layer. High-volume, many-SKU importers overpay most often, because one wrong classification or one stacked emergency duty repeats across every unit and every shipment. DDP sellers who let a freight forwarder handle clearance are also exposed, because the duty was paid on your behalf and you may never have seen the line items. See FBA HS codes and DDP vs DAP.
How a refund actually gets filed
This is not a form you fill out in five minutes. The mechanics, in order:
- Pull your entry summaries from CBP for the relevant period.
- Identify, line by line, which duties were charged under IEEPA versus Section 301 versus normal duty.
- Confirm the goods, origin, and classification on each line.
- File the refund claim through the correct CBP channel, with documentation, within the allowable window.
- A licensed customs broker handles the filing. This is regulated work, filed by a broker, not by an app.
HS Mate does the first three steps fast and at scale, then hands a clean, broker-ready package to a licensed broker who files. You are not doing this alone, and you are not paying upfront to find out if there is anything there.
The deadline problem
Refund and protest windows are not open forever. CBP entries have time limits, and once a window closes on an entry, that money is gone whether or not you were owed it. Every month you wait, the oldest 2025 entries get closer to that line. This is the one part of the process where doing nothing has a real cost.
Check your entries free
You do not need to commit to anything to find out if you have a claim. HS Mate runs a free audit of your 2025 import entries, separates the IEEPA layer from the Section 301 layer, and tells you what looks recoverable. If there is a claim worth filing, a licensed broker files it, and you pay only if money comes back. No recovery, no fee.