Tariff refunds are flowing. The real fight is over who gets them.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is making steady progress in refunding tariff money that was struck down in February by the U.S. Supreme Court, but one remaining dispute is on appeal and consumer class actions seeking that cash are pending all over the country.

Brandon Lord, executive director of trade programs with the government agency, reported in a court filing last week that $104.29 billion in both potential and certified refunds have been accepted for processing under its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system.

He added that $71 billion in refunds of International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs invalidated by the court have been sent to the Treasury Department to be disbursed, including interest.

The CBP collected about $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs after they were imposed by President Donald Trump last year without congressional approval.

Ashley Akers, a partner with Holland & Knight LLP who represents companies seeking tariff refunds from the government while defending them against consumer class actions, said there are still many issues to be resolved but that the process is moving at a decent clip.

"It's been going more smoothly than anticipated for a lot of importers," she said.

Senior Judge Richard K. Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade ordered the agency to refund all the duties paid, but the administration balked, arguing that CBP cannot refund tariff revenue that has been "liquidated" because too much time has passed unless an administrative protest is filed with the CBP or a lawsuit is filed with the trade court by a specific company.

That dispute is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

"This appeal is most likely to have the greatest impact on small importers and shipments to individual consumers purchasing goods directly from abroad using e-commerce," said Robert A. Shapiro, chair of Thompson Coburn LLP's international trade and transportation regulatory practice group.

Class actions move slowly

While the refund process continues, consumer class actions against companies that collected tariff revenue are proceeding slowly.

They fall under three categories: the first are cases against shippers like FedEx Corp. which identified the tariffs charged on deliveries and charged them invoices for goods from outside the United States. Anastopoulo v. FedEx Corp., 26-cv-02334 (W.D. Tenn., filed March 27, 2026).

The second are class actions against companies like Amazon.com Inc., which has not sought reimbursement from the federal government even though it is entitled to do so under the Supreme Court decision. Learning Resources v. Trump, 2026 DJDAR 1259 (S. Ct., filed June 17, 2025).

Trump, in an April 21 appearance on CNBC, described such decisions as "brilliant ... "If they don't do that, I'll remember them," he said.

Steve W. Berman, a partner with Hagens Berman Sobol & Shapiro LLP who represents the class, wrote in his complaint against Amazon in the Western District of Washington that such a move to please the president may be "shrewd" but added that the company still must reimburse consumers for the invalid tariffs.

"The problem is that the funds Amazon is using to stay in the President's good graces do not belong to Amazon," he wrote. "Those funds belong to the consumers who paid them."

"Amazon's use of these funds to curry political favor does not make consumers whole and is not a legally cognizable substitute for the relief sought in this lawsuit," Berman added. In re: Amazon Tariff Litigation, 26-cv-01670 (W.D. Wash., filed May 15, 2026).

The third category is lawsuits against other companies that have sought tariff refunds but have not promised to return specific amounts that were added due to the tariffs.

The battle has been joined in the Northern District of Illinois in a class action against Costco Wholesale Corp., where Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP partner Brad D. Brian of Los Angeles - who represents the company - filed a motion to dismiss.

Ryan Z. Cortazar, an attorney with Korein Tillery LLC, countered by arguing that Costco is taking advantage of its reputation for offering low prices to get consumers to pay extra.

"Because they trust Costco's stated commitments to its core pricing philosophy and corollary representations about not passing on certain costs -- like tariffs -- to consumers, Costco members make ex ante decisions about what to pick up there before leaving their doors for out-of-the-way 'Costco trips,' he wrote.

Brian, in a reply brief filed last week, pounced, accusing Cortazar of inventing a new theory of injury based on the "sunk costs" of a trip to Costco.

"Rather than take issue with the products he purchased or the accuracy of their listed prices, plaintiff argues that Costco's general commitment to low prices influenced him to go to Costco to shop," he wrote.

"But where, as here, the prices are accurately posted and the goods purchased are not defective, 'dissatisfaction' with a supposed mismatch between a retailer's corporate philosophy and the shopping experience cannot give rise to an Article III injury any more than dissatisfaction with a particular posted price can," Brian added.

He also said the case wasn't ripe because Costco has not gotten the tariff money back. Stockov v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 26-cv-02734 (N.D. Ill., filed March 11, 2026).

How strong are the cases?

Legal observers said the plaintiffs' cases against Costco and Amazon are weaker.

Meredith Kolsky Lewis, a professor at the University of Buffalo School of Law, said the case against Costco arguably isn't ripe and that plaintiffs would have trouble proving they were harmed.

"Even if they can tie prices on their particular purchases to Costco passing on the tariffs, the plaintiffs made those purchases anyway, without any clear statement from Costco that it would refund portions of sales if it were to receive refunds," she wrote.

Lewis said Amazon may have a strong defense because it never got the refunds in the first place so plaintiffs cannot assert the company was unjustly enriched.

Shapiro said the lawsuits against shippers like FedEx are arguably the strongest because it is a customs broker and did not purchase the goods itself.

He added that determining the duties to be refunded in the Costco and Amazon cases is more difficult, because some of the tariffs may have been absorbed by the manufacturer while the rest was absorbed by the named companies or an importer.

Only a handful of cases have reached the motion to dismiss stage. U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger's decision in Costco's motion to dismiss may be a harbinger of rulings to come in the consumer class actions.