Where this stands today
The law here is unsettled, and this page says so rather than promising a refund. Four things are settled enough to plan around.
20 Feb – 23 Jul 2026
The surcharge, and its expiry
A proclamation signed 20 February 2026 imposed a 10 % ad valorem surcharge on most imports from 12:01 a.m. ET on 24 February 2026. Section 122 allows such a surcharge for 150 days at up to 15 %, so it terminated by operation of law at 12:01 a.m. ET on 24 July 2026. Congress did not extend it.
7 May 2026
The Court of International Trade ruled against it
A divided panel held 2–1 that the proclamation exceeded the President's authority, because Section 122 speaks to "large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits" and the proclamation had relied on trade and current-account deficits, which the majority treated as legally distinct.
Relief was narrow
No government-wide refund was ordered
The court enjoined collection and ordered refunds only as to the plaintiffs before it — the importers Burlap & Barrel and Basic Fun, and the State of Washington. It declined to enjoin collection nationwide, so there is no automatic refund channel for anyone else.
11 Jun 2026 → pending
The ruling is stayed on appeal
The government appealed to the Federal Circuit, which stayed the injunction pending appeal after finding the government had shown a likelihood of success. The appeal was still pending when this page was last reviewed on 3 September 2026. Whether refunds ever reach other importers turns on how it ends.
Read this before you rely on any number below. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and no refund is certain. What is within your control is preserving the option: a claim you never filed cannot be revived by a court decision that lands after your deadline.
What the surcharge cost you
Add one row per entry line. Everything is worked out in your browser — nothing is sent anywhere unless you press "Check with the duty engine" on a row.
| Entry date | Customs value (USD) | Origin (ISO2) | HTS 10-digit optional | USMCA | Sec. 232 | Surcharge paid | Remove |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CA/MX only | — | ||||||
Needs an in-window entry date, a 10-digit HTS code, a 2-letter origin and a value. | |||||||
Surcharge paid on the lines that look subject to it
$0.00
0 line(s) look subject · 0 look likely exempt. This is what was paid, not what will be refunded — no refund is available to non-plaintiff importers today.
How a line is judged exempt
The proclamation carved out several categories through HTSUS subheadings 9903.03.02 through 9903.03.11. This page can see three of them.
USMCA-qualifying goods
Goods of Canada or Mexico that qualified for USMCA treatment were exempt. The checkbox is only enabled when the origin is CA or MX, because that is the only case where it is a live question.
Section 232 articles
Articles already subject to Section 232 measures — steel, aluminium, copper, lumber, autos and their derivative lists — were carved out rather than stacked.
The product annex, read from Census data
The annex covered critical minerals, bullion, energy, certain fertilizers, certain agricultural goods, pharmaceuticals, certain electronics, certain vehicles and parts and certain aerospace products. Rather than transcribe it, we derived the lines from U.S. Census imports-for-consumption data for March–July 2026: where the duty CBP actually calculated shows no surcharge across at least 80 % of a line's trade value, the line is almost certainly inside an annex. That is an inference, which is why a match reads likely exempt per Census duty data and never exempt.
What it cannot see
In-transit goods (loaded on their final mode before 24 February 2026 and entered before 28 February 2026), Chapter 98 provisions, and any annex carve-out narrower than a full HTS line. If your goods fall in one of those, the page will over-count — your entry summary is the record that settles it.
What you can actually file
Two mechanisms, and which one applies is decided entirely by whether the entry has liquidated.
Post-summary correction
A PSC amends the entry summary while the entry is still open. If CBP accepts it, any refund is paid out when the entry liquidates. It is the cheaper route and it keeps the entry live rather than letting it close.
Filed through the broker of record in ACE, within CBP's PSC window for the entry.
Protest, within 180 days
Once an entry liquidates, a protest under 19 U.S.C. 1514 is the mechanism, and it must be filed within 180 days of the date of liquidation or reliquidation. Miss it and the entry is final, whatever the Federal Circuit decides afterwards.
The clock runs from the date on CBP's bulletin notice of liquidation, not from entry.
The 314-day cycle
CBP's standard liquidation cycle is roughly 314 days from entry, and it can liquidate sooner where nothing is open. Entries from the surcharge window are therefore liquidating through late 2026 and the first half of 2027 — and each one starts its own 180-day protest clock as it goes.
The appeal is on nobody's schedule but the court's. Your deadlines are not.
What a filing needs from you
- CBP Form 7501 — the entry summary, per entry. It carries the entry number, the HTS lines and the duty as calculated.
- Commercial invoice — to tie customs value to the line.
- Proof of payment — that the duty was in fact paid, and by whom.
- Liquidation date — from CBP's bulletin notice, for any entry that has already liquidated. It fixes the 180-day deadline.
- Bill of lading and ACE entry data — helpful for reconciling lines and for in-transit questions.
Have us look at your entries
Send us your entry summaries for the 24 February – 23 July 2026 window. We will pull the surcharge lines together, flag which entries have liquidated and which have not, and work the filing through our licensed broker network. We will tell you plainly where a claim does not look worth making.
A 10 % ad valorem surcharge on most goods entered for consumption into the United States, imposed by a presidential proclamation signed on 20 February 2026 under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. It took effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on 24 February 2026 and terminated by operation of law at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on 24 July 2026, at the end of the 150-day period Section 122 allows without an act of Congress. Congress did not extend it. Entries were flagged with HTSUS heading 9903.03.01.
On 7 May 2026 the U.S. Court of International Trade held, 2-1, that the proclamation exceeded the President's authority under Section 122. The majority read the statute's "large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits" as a specific balance-of-payments measure, and found the proclamation had instead relied on trade and current-account deficits, which the court treated as legally distinct.
Not today, and not automatically. The court did not order government-wide refunds. It enjoined collection and ordered refunds only as to the plaintiffs before it — the importers Burlap & Barrel and Basic Fun, and the State of Washington. The government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and on 11 June 2026 the Federal Circuit stayed the injunction pending appeal, finding the government had shown a likelihood of success. The appeal was still pending when this page was last reviewed. Whether refunds ever reach non-plaintiff importers depends on how that appeal ends.
Because the filing deadlines run on their own clock, independent of the appeal. If your entries liquidate and the 180-day protest window closes before the Federal Circuit rules, a favourable decision will not reopen them. Knowing which entries carry surcharge dollars, and when each one liquidates, is what lets you decide where a filing is worth making.
A post-summary correction (PSC) amends an entry summary before the entry liquidates; if CBP accepts it, any refund is paid out at liquidation. A protest under 19 U.S.C. 1514 is filed after liquidation and must be filed within 180 days of the date of liquidation. Which one applies to a given entry is purely a function of whether that entry has liquidated yet.
CBP's standard liquidation cycle is about 314 days from the date of entry, and it can liquidate sooner where nothing is open on the entry. For surcharge-period entries that puts most liquidation dates in late 2026 and the first half of 2027, with the 180-day protest window running from each. The dates this page shows are estimates from that 314-day norm — the operative date is the one on CBP's bulletin notice of liquidation for your entry, and you should work from that, not from an estimate.
The proclamation exempted several categories through HTSUS subheadings 9903.03.02 through 9903.03.11: goods qualifying for USMCA treatment, goods already loaded and in transit on their final mode before the surcharge took effect and entered before 28 February 2026, articles subject to Section 232 measures, and a product annex covering critical minerals, bullion and currency metals, energy products, certain fertilizers, certain agricultural goods, pharmaceuticals and their ingredients, certain electronics, certain vehicles and parts, and certain aerospace products. Whether a specific product fell inside an annex is a classification question for your broker.
Three ways. If you tell it the goods qualified under USMCA, or that they were subject to Section 232 measures, it treats the line as exempt on that basis. Otherwise it checks your 10-digit HTS code against a list built from U.S. Census imports-for-consumption data for March through July 2026: lines where the duty CBP actually calculated shows no surcharge across at least 80 % of the trade value are very likely inside the product annex. That is an inference from published trade data, not a reading of the annex itself, which is why the page says "likely exempt" and never "exempt".
At minimum, CBP Form 7501 (the entry summary) for each entry, the commercial invoice, and proof that the duty was paid. Your broker's ACE entry data and the bill of lading help reconcile lines. If the entry has already liquidated you also need the liquidation date, which fixes the 180-day protest deadline.
When the surcharge lapsed, a separate set of duties issued under Section 301 took its place for many origins, on a different legal footing and with different rates and exemptions. Nothing on this page speaks to those duties — use the tariff simulator for a current-date estimate.
Airlift handles customs work through our licensed broker network. We can pull your entry data together, identify the entries that carry surcharge dollars, and work with the broker of record on the filing. Whether a claim is worth making, and how it should be framed, is a judgement your broker or trade counsel makes on your entries — this page is a starting point, not advice.
Sources
Every legal statement on this page traces to one of these. Last reviewed 3 September 2026. The appeal is live, so check the date before relying on any of it.
- Proclamation, "Imposing a Temporary Import Surcharge to Address Fundamental International Payments Problems" (20 February 2026) — The 10 % rate, the 24 February 2026 effective time, the 24 July 2026 termination, the in-transit rule and the exemption annex.
- Skadden, "US Trade Court Strikes Down Section 122 Tariffs, but Ruling's Fate Is Uncertain and Practical Impact Is Limited" (May 2026) — The 7 May 2026 CIT decision, the 2-1 split, the balance-of-payments reasoning, and relief limited to the three plaintiffs.
- Gibson Dunn, "Section 122 Global Tariffs Invalidated by the Court of International Trade: Ruling and Next Steps" — Proclamation 11012, the 15 % / 150-day statutory ceiling, the appeal filed 8 May 2026 and the administrative stay.
- Ward and Smith, "Court of International Trade Rejects 10% Section 122 Tariff: What Businesses Should Know While the Appeal Proceeds" — Slip Op. 26-47, Court Nos. 26-01472 and 26-01606; the post-summary correction vs. 180-day protest split for preserving a claim.
- Squire Patton Boggs, "CBP Issues CSMS Guidance on Section 122 Duties and Continued Suspension of De Minimis Eligibility" (23 February 2026) — CBP's implementing CSMS guidance: HTSUS 9903.03.01, the exemption subheadings 9903.03.02-.11, the in-transit cut-offs, and drawback eligibility.
- Carra Globe, "Section 122 Tariffs Survive on Appeal" (17 June 2026) — The Federal Circuit stay of 11 June 2026, the scheduled expiry on 24 July 2026 without a congressional extension, and the absence of any automatic refund channel.
- 19 U.S.C. 1514 — protest against decisions of Customs — The 180-day protest window measured from the date of liquidation or reliquidation.
Related: the tariff simulator prices a shipment at today's rates, and the IEEPA refund calculator covers the earlier IEEPA tariffs.