Tariff Refunds Reach $100 Billion. Tracing Them to Shoppers Is the Hard Part

Customs and Border Protection had paid out $100 billion in refunds of tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as of 31 July, agency official Brandon Lord said in a filing with the US Court of International Trade. The agency has accepted $128.68 billion in claims through the portal it opened in April, out of roughly $166 billion subject to repayment after the Supreme Court's decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, decided 6-3 on 20 February 2026.

Not Every Entry Can Be Reopened

The remaining balance is not simply a queue.

About $11.4 billion of the duties, or 6.9% of the IEEPA total, sits in entries that have finally liquidated. Customs and Border Protection's refund portal cannot yet process those, and the agency missed its own end-of-July target for switching that capability on. Since a feature expansion on 29 June, 2.2 million submissions have been filed through the system.

That is the first place a refund can stall, and it happens before any merchant has to decide what to do with the money.

The Condition Amazon Attached

Amazon received approximately $600 million in tariff refunds in the second quarter. Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky told analysts the company would return money to shoppers under one condition only.

"We've identified a limited set of circumstances where we can trace that we've passed specific import charges onto customers, and when we receive those refunds, we will proactively contact affected customers and automatically issue refunds to them," he said. Otherwise, Amazon would use the refunds to keep investing in lower prices.

The operative word is trace.

Why Amazon's Share Is Smaller Than It Looks

Traceability is the second constraint. The first is standing.

Olsavsky also told analysts that Amazon is not the importer for the large majority of goods sold through its store. Third-party sellers import those goods themselves and pay the duties on them. Where Amazon never paid the duty, there is no refund for it to receive and nothing for it to pass on.

The $600 million therefore covers a narrow slice: goods Amazon imported itself, on which it can also show the charge reached a specific order. The two conditions cut the number down independently, which is why a company of Amazon's size collected a figure this small.

Where Retailers Have Landed

Amazon, Walmart, Costco, FedEx and UPS have said they will pass refunds on. Apple, Nintendo, Ford, General Motors and Nike have made no such commitment.

The sums involved are not small. Apple recorded up to $2.2 billion in tariff-related recoveries and is directing its refund toward US investment projects. Ford expects about $1.3 billion, General Motors about $500 million, and Nike close to $1 billion. Nintendo has argued that consumers agreed to tariff-related price increases at the point of purchase and are not entitled to a share of the rebate. Costco chief executive Ron Vachris said the company's commitment would be "to find the best way to return this value to our members."

Why This Is a Payments Problem, Not Just Policy

Reversing a charge is straightforward when it exists as a discrete, referenceable line item. It is much harder when the cost was absorbed into a price.

Retailers promising pass-through generally itemized import charges at checkout, where the fee appears as its own line on the order. Those that absorbed duty into shelf prices have no order-level record to reverse, whatever their intent. A tariff attaches to a shipment; a price is set weeks later at the SKU level, blending duty, freight, currency and margin. By the time a customer pays, the duty is no longer a separable component of what they paid.

Full repayment is not assumed. Kathleen Claussen, a professor at Georgetown Law School, told Newsweek that repaying the entire $166 billion was "reasonably unlikely but possible," citing importers that never apply, the absence of an automatic mechanism, and businesses that have since closed. Joseph Spraragen, a partner at trade law firm GDLSK, put a figure on it: "I would anticipate that 10-15 percent of the duties collected will not be refunded."

Correction

Correction, 11 August 2026: An earlier version of this article said about $83 billion had been returned and attributed that figure to filings with the US Court of International Trade. The figure came from secondary coverage published on 3 August. A filing by US Customs and Border Protection with the Court of International Trade put the amount paid at $100 billion as of 31 July 2026. The figure and its attribution have been corrected, and the article has been updated with the agency's filing as the source.