10/6/26 — CAPE Phase 3 Goes Live Today, but Only for CIT Plaintiffs

U.S. Customs and Border Protection deployed Phase 3 of its Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) system in ACE today, Tuesday, October 6, 2026, on the date CBP gave the Court of International Trade in its September 15 declaration. Phase 3 is the first CAPE functionality to reach finally liquidated entries, meaning entries liquidated long enough ago that CBP says it lacks authority to reliquidate them absent a court order.

If your company is not yet a plaintiff, and wishes access to the Phase 3 refunds, please feel free to contact us.

Phase 3 is open only to litigants. Phase 3 refunds are available only to importers that have filed their own IEEPA refund actions at the Court of International Trade, and only for entries covered by the court's reliquidation order. That order, first docketed by Judge Richard K. Eaton on July 15, 2026 and now entered in more than 4,000 cases, directs CBP to reliquidate, without regard to IEEPA duties, plaintiffs' entries that have been liquidated for more than 80 days. Reliquidation is conditioned on counsel submitting the plaintiff's importer of record number under CBP's instructions, and on CBP's acceptance of the plaintiff's CAPE declaration. Plaintiffs whose counsel submitted a valid importer of record number by July 30, 2026 can file beginning today. Plaintiffs whose numbers arrived later have been told to await additional instructions from CBP.

If you have not sued, Phase 3 does nothing for you. CBP's position is that it cannot refund IEEPA duties on finally liquidated entries without a court order. Two class certification motions that could reach non-litigants remain pending: the Rule 23(b)(2) motion in Freestyle World v. United States, Ct. No. 26-01088, argued August 19, and the motion in V.O.S. Selections v. United States, Ct. No. 25-00066, argued August 6. The government's appeal to the Federal Circuit (No. 26-1895) of the trade court's order requiring reliquidation of all affected entries also remains pending.

Program totals. In a declaration filed today in Freestyle World, Brandon Lord, Executive Director of CBP's Trade Programs Directorate, reported that as of October 2, about $136.6 billion in potential and certified refunds had been accepted into CAPE, about $126 billion in duties plus interest had been certified and sent to Treasury, and more than 21 million entries had been liquidated or reliquidated without IEEPA duties.