The headline number on tariff refunds is striking. CBP has processed 121.75 billion dollars in claims and repaid 86.3 billion dollars to importers. And yet roughly 93.5 percent of eligible importers are still not set up to claim. That gap between what has been repaid and what remains unclaimed is the real story.
The money is real
These are not projections or estimates. The refunds have been processed and paid. Importers who filed have received money back. The mechanism works, which removes the most common objection, that it sounds too good to be true.
So why is so much unclaimed
The barrier is not eligibility. It is setup and awareness. Many importers do not know the refund program applies to them. Many are not set up with an ACE Portal account to file. The process is technical and deadline-driven, and it is nobody's full-time job. So the money sits.
Why the gap will not last forever
Refund eligibility is tied to entry liquidation deadlines. The unclaimed billions are not a permanent pool. They erode as eligible entries age out. Every quarter, some of that unclaimed money moves permanently out of reach.
Closing your part of the gap
The businesses that have recovered are not special. They simply filed. If you were the importer of record on recent entries with tariff exposure, you may be part of the unclaimed majority. A free eligibility check tells you in about a minute whether you are, and we handle the rest from there.