US companies are getting billions back from invalidated Trump tariffs, and they’re being creative about it

In February 2026, the Supreme Court handed US importers one of the most consequential trade rulings in decades. The court voted 6-3 that President Trump’s tariffs, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, were unconstitutional. The logic was straightforward: taxing authority belongs to Congress, not the executive branch.

The federal government’s total exposure from the invalidated tariffs sits somewhere between $166 billion and $175 billion, based on data from Customs and Border Protection and projections from the Penn Wharton Budget Model.

Who’s getting what

Amazon reported receiving approximately $600 million in tariff refunds in the second quarter of 2026 alone. Williams-Sonoma collected $200 million in total refunds and chose to direct $10 million of that toward employee pension contributions. Shipping giants FedEx, UPS, and DHL are pursuing their own refund claims, each promising to pass the benefits along to customers.

That last part is where things get complicated. All three carriers are facing lawsuits from consumers and plaintiffs who argue the companies should be legally required to return the money to the people who actually paid the surcharges at the point of shipment.

The refund pipeline itself runs through a newly launched system called CAPE, operated by Customs and Border Protection. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, the US Court of International Trade directed that refunds be processed through this platform. Tens of billions of dollars had already been distributed by mid-2026, with the remainder still working through the queue.

Some companies, unwilling to wait out the processing timeline or uncertain about their legal standing, have explored selling their refund rights to third parties at a discount. A company might accept $0.80 for every refund dollar it’s owed, giving up some return in exchange for certainty and speed.

How we got here

The tariffs at the center of this case were imposed in 2025 under IEEPA, a law originally designed to give the president emergency economic powers in genuine national security crises. The Trump administration used the statute to justify sweeping import taxes, framing trade imbalances as national emergencies.

The Supreme Court’s February 20, 2026 ruling drew a firm constitutional line: emergency powers don’t include the authority to levy taxes on imports. The decision didn’t just invalidate the tariffs going forward. It retroactively made the entire collection of those duties legally questionable, which is what triggered the refund obligation.

The government collected between $130 billion and $166 billion in tariffs under the invalidated IEEPA authority. When you add projected interest and processing costs, the Penn Wharton Budget Model puts the ceiling closer to $175 billion.

What comes next for companies and consumers

The Williams-Sonoma pension move is a useful case study in how companies are thinking about these windfalls. Rather than returning cash to shareholders through buybacks or dividends, the company directed a portion toward employee benefits. Pension contributions are tax-deductible and reduce future liability. The remaining $190 million presumably went to other purposes the company hasn’t fully disclosed.

For the shipping carriers, the stakes are higher because their business model specifically involved passing tariff costs to customers through fuel surcharges and import-handling fees. The lawsuits against FedEx, UPS, and DHL rest on a simple argument: if you charged customers for a cost that’s now been ruled illegal, the refund for that cost should follow the same path back.

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