ACE Portal Bonds and Continuous Entry Bonds: What Every Importer Filing a Tariff Refund Needs to Know

Most importers think of their customs bond as a background administrative requirement. You get one, you file it, and you move on. But when you are preparing to file an IEEPA tariff refund claim, your bond history inside CBP's Automated Commercial Environment becomes a surprisingly important piece of the puzzle. Understanding how bonds are recorded, what CBP can see, and how bond gaps or changes could affect a refund claim will save you time and prevent avoidable rejections.

What a Customs Bond Actually Does Inside ACE

A customs bond is a financial guarantee between an importer, a surety company, and CBP. It assures CBP that if duties, taxes, or fees are owed and not paid, the surety will cover them. For most active importers, this means holding a continuous entry bond that stays on file and covers all shipments made within a given year.

Inside the ACE portal, your continuous bond is linked directly to your Importer of Record number. Every entry summary tied to that IOR number during the bond coverage period becomes part of your trade history. CBP can see the bond amount, the effective dates, the surety that issued it, and the specific entries it covers. This linkage is not incidental. It is how CBP confirms that the entity requesting a tariff refund is the same entity that paid the original duties.

Why Bond Continuity Matters for IEEPA Refund Claims

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled IEEPA tariffs unconstitutional in February 2026. That ruling opened a refund window for duties paid under those orders. The filing deadlines are February 4, 2027 for tariffs assessed on goods from China, Mexico, and Canada under the fentanyl orders, and April 5, 2027 for reciprocal tariffs applied to other countries.

To recover those duties, your claim must be filed through CBP's CAPE portal and must correctly identify the entry summaries that reflect the overpaid amounts. CBP will cross-reference your bond record to confirm that the IOR on the claim matches the IOR that appeared on each entry at the time of importation.

If there are gaps in your bond coverage, for example, if your continuous bond lapsed and was renewed under a slightly different entity name or IOR number, CBP may flag those entries for additional review. That kind of mismatch does not automatically disqualify a claim, but it adds time and documentation burden. Catching it before you file is far more efficient than resolving it after submission.

Single-Entry Bonds and Their Impact on Refund Eligibility

Importers who ship infrequently often use single-entry bonds rather than a continuous bond. Each shipment gets its own bond, issued by a surety and filed at entry. Inside ACE, these bonds appear as separate records rather than a single ongoing coverage line.

For refund purposes, single-entry bonds can actually make documentation cleaner in one sense: each bond is tied to a specific entry, so there is a clear one-to-one relationship. The challenge is that low-volume importers may not have easy visibility into all of their historical single-entry bonds without pulling a full trade activity report from ACE. If you imported goods subject to IEEPA tariffs across multiple years and used single-entry bonds throughout, compiling a complete picture of your eligible entries requires digging into ACE data systematically.

How to Check Your Bond Status in the ACE Portal

If you have an active ACE portal account with the appropriate access level, you can view your bond information under the Bond Management module. The system shows bond type, surety name, bond amount, effective date, and termination date. For continuous bonds, you want to confirm there are no gaps between renewal periods during the years when IEEPA tariffs were in effect.

The IEEPA tariff orders relevant to the current refund window were imposed beginning in early 2025. That means entries from roughly February 2025 onward are potentially within scope, depending on the specific order and country of origin. Pull your bond records for that entire period and compare them against your entry summary dates.

If you see a lapse or a change in your IOR number during that window, document the reason now. Common causes include business restructurings, surety company changes, and administrative oversights during annual renewals. Each has a different resolution path when it comes to CBP review.

Bond Amounts and Sufficiency Reviews

CBP periodically reviews whether continuous bond amounts are sufficient relative to an importer's duty liability. If CBP determined that your bond was insufficient during the tariff period and required you to increase it, that review may have created a record note inside ACE. While this does not disqualify a refund claim, it is worth knowing that CBP's internal record for your account may contain flags that a claims reviewer could encounter.

Importers who received bond sufficiency notices during the IEEPA tariff period, often because the added tariff layers significantly increased their total duty liability, should pull those correspondence records along with their bond documentation before filing.

Surety Company Changes and What They Mean for Your ACE Record

Switching surety companies during the relevant period is common and generally harmless, provided the transition was handled cleanly. In ACE, a surety change appears as a termination of one bond and activation of a new one. As long as the effective dates are consecutive and the IOR number remains the same, CBP treats this as continuous coverage.

Problems arise when an importer switches sureties but experiences a coverage gap, even a short one, between the old bond terminating and the new bond activating. Any entries filed during that gap would technically have been filed without a valid continuous bond. CBP may have required a single-entry bond for those shipments instead, which is a different record type in ACE. Identifying those entries and having the correct bond documentation available will keep your refund claim moving smoothly.

How a Tariff Refund Specialist Uses Your Bond Data

When Tarisol connects you with the Tariff Refund Agency, one of the early steps in the claim preparation process involves reviewing your ACE data, including your bond history, to build a complete and accurate picture of your eligible entries. This is not a formality. Bond records help confirm the importer identity on every entry, cross-reference duty payment records, and flag any documentation gaps before the claim reaches CBP.

The CAPE portal requires that claims be properly associated with the IOR that originally paid the duties. Bond records are one of the primary tools CBP uses to validate that association. Getting this right on the front end significantly reduces the chance of a claim being returned for additional information.

The Refund Deadlines Are Fixed. Your Bond Review Should Start Now.

Roughly 93.5 percent of importers eligible for IEEPA tariff refunds have not yet filed a claim. CBP has already processed approximately $121.75 billion in claims, meaning the importers who moved early are well ahead. With deadlines as firm as February 4, 2027 and April 5, 2027, there is no benefit to waiting.

Reviewing your bond history now, before a filing specialist is involved, lets you surface any issues early and provide complete documentation when it matters. If your bond records are clean, the review takes very little time. If there are gaps or changes to address, you want to know about them with months to spare, not days.

Check Your Eligibility With Tarisol Today

Tarisol connects U.S. importers with the Tariff Refund Agency, a licensed specialist that handles IEEPA tariff refund claims through the CAPE portal from start to finish. The process is success-based, meaning there is no upfront cost. If no refund is recovered, there is no fee.

If your company imported goods subject to IEEPA tariffs during the covered period, your bond and entry records are worth reviewing now. Contact Tarisol to find out what your import history may be worth and how to protect your right to recover before the deadline passes.