Some businesses experienced problems accessing the U.S. government’s new tariff refund portal after the system launched on Monday.
Rick Woldenberg, CEO of educational toy maker Learning Resources, told CBS News he got an error message when the company tried to file a claim for a tariff refund using the new Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, or CAPE, platform.
“The system is currently experiencing high volume, please try again later,” the message stated.
“The system seems to have gone blinky,” said Woldenberg, whose Vernon Hills, Illinois-based company filed the 2025 lawsuit that led to the Supreme Court striking down the Trump administration’s emergency tariffs in February. “It seems like the system is overwhelmed.”
The federal agency that operates CAPE, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), told CBS News it’s looking into reports of problems using the system.
The U.S. government now owes tens of thousands of importers a total of up to $175 billion in refunds for the tariffs imposed by President Trump last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.
Beth Benike, co-founder of Busy Baby, a Minnesota-based maker of baby products, told CBS News that she spent more than four hours on hold with CBP over the weekend trying to resolve an issue with an account that businesses need to file tariff refund claims.
CAPE requires importers to have an account in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), the centralized platform that Customs and Border Patrol uses for processing imports and exports as well as collecting tariff revenue.
“I got an error message saying ‘Duplicate tax ID,’ which means my importer account is tied to someone else’s,” said Benike, who is seeking to submit a refund claim for $50,000 in tariffs. “CBP gave me a ticket number, but there’s been no response.”
“I can’t even get to the point where I’d receive an error message because the portal is down,” she added.
As of April 9, more than 56,000 U.S. importers had registered to receive refunds, according to CBP. Up to 82% of IEEPA duty payments, amounting to $127 billion, are eligible for refunds in CAPE’s initial deployment.
Only IEEPA tariffs are eligible for refunds. Initially, CAPE will accept requests for estimated tariffs, along with those finalized by CBP within the past 80 days. The agency has said it will issue tariff refunds for valid claims within 60 to 90 days of approving them, although it could take longer if claims contain errors or inaccuracies that require fixing.