19 августа 2026 г.
Which import charges you can get back, and which are gone for good
Some import charges can come back to you and some never will, and the line between them is whether the money went to the government or to a business. Duties paid to CBP have real refund mechanisms: IEEPA tariffs come back through the CAPE process after the Supreme Court struck them down, overpaid duties can be corrected with a post summary correction within 300 days of entry and at least 15 days before liquidation, a protest under 19 USC 1514 can challenge a liquidation within 180 days, drawback returns 99 percent of duties on goods later exported or destroyed within 5 years, and missed Section 301 exclusions can be claimed through a PSC or protest. Commercial charges are the opposite: demurrage, per diem, detention, exam costs including CES handling and exam drayage, chassis fees, and storage are money paid to terminals, ocean carriers, and service providers, and they are essentially never refundable. That is why the game on those charges is prevention, not recovery. We handle both sides: duty refunds, which are licensed customs business under 19 USC 1641, are taken care of with the licensed customs broker we work with, and the freight side is where we do the prevention.
First, what liquidation actually means
Liquidation is the moment a customs entry becomes final. When you import, CBP accepts your entry with estimated duties, and liquidation is CBP's official closing of the books on that entry, fixing what you truly owed.
The word matters because most refund deadlines are measured against it. Before liquidation you can still correct an entry; after liquidation your window narrows to a protest; after final liquidation, with narrow exceptions, the entry is settled for good.
So when someone asks whether they can get a refund after liquidation, the answer is yes, but the clock is short and specific, which is what the rest of this post maps out.
Duties paid to the government: the refundable side
IEEPA tariffs are the big one right now. The Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs, and CBP is refunding those duties with interest through the CAPE process; we walk through the whole thing on our tariff and duty refunds page.
For ordinary overpayments, a post summary correction fixes an entry within 300 days of the entry date, as long as it is filed at least 15 days before liquidation. Miss that window and the next tool is a protest under 19 USC 1514, filed within 180 days of liquidation, which formally challenges what CBP decided.
Two more mechanisms round out the map. Duty drawback returns 99 percent of duties on goods that are later exported or destroyed, with a 5 year window, and a Section 301 exclusion you qualified for but never claimed can usually be recovered through a PSC or protest inside those same deadlines.
Who can actually file, and how we handle it
All of these filings are customs business under 19 USC 1641, which means they must be done by the importer of record itself or by a licensed customs broker. Individual consumers cannot file at all; if tariffs raised prices at the store, there is no refund path for the shopper, only for the importer who paid CBP.
We are asked often whether we handle these, and the answer is yes: PSCs, protests, drawback claims and CAPE declarations are taken care of with the licensed customs broker we work with, because the law reserves the filing for the importer of record or a licensed customs broker.
If you are not sure where to start with any of them, get in touch and we will take it from there.
Commercial charges: the money that does not come back
Demurrage, per diem, detention, chassis fees, and storage are not government money. They are bills from marine terminals, ocean carriers, and equipment providers, and outside of a billing error or a rare dispute win, they are gone once paid.
Exam costs sit in the same bucket. When CBP flags a container for exam, the CES handling fee and the drayage to and from the exam site are commercial charges you pay even when the exam finds nothing wrong, and nobody refunds them afterward.
This is the part of the invoice where recovery is a myth and prevention is the whole game. Every dollar you do not spend on demurrage is worth more than a dollar you hope to claw back, because the clawback almost never comes.
Prevention is the refund for commercial charges
Because those charges cannot be recovered, the services around them exist to stop the meter before it starts. A pre-pull takes your container off the terminal before free time expires, which is exactly what our pre-pull and demurrage service is built for.
When a container is flagged, experienced customs exam drayage gets it to the exam site and back without adding avoidable days of storage and per diem. And when the economics favor getting the box back to the port fast, a transload moves your cargo into a domestic trailer and returns the container before per diem bites.
Our rule of thumb for reading any import invoice: if the line item went to CBP, ask us whether a mechanism can bring it back; if it went to a terminal, a carrier, or a service provider, put your energy into making sure that line is smaller next time. We handle both: the first kind with the licensed customs broker we work with, and the freight work for the second.
refunds · customs · demurrage · duties · liquidation
Where to act on this
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Вопросы
Прямые ответы
Is demurrage ever refundable?
Essentially never. Demurrage, per diem, detention, chassis fees and storage are not government money. They are bills from marine terminals, ocean carriers and equipment providers, and outside a billing error or a rare dispute win they are gone once paid. That is why the whole game on those lines is prevention rather than recovery: a dollar you do not spend on demurrage is worth more than a dollar you hope to claw back, because the clawback almost never comes.
Can I get back the cost of a customs exam?
No. When CBP flags a container for exam, the CES handling fee and the drayage to and from the exam site are commercial charges, and you pay them even when the exam finds nothing wrong. Nobody refunds them afterward. What you can do is keep the exam from turning into extra days: experienced exam drayage gets the box to the site and back without adding avoidable storage and per diem on top of the exam itself.
How long do I have to correct an overpaid duty?
A post summary correction fixes an entry within 300 days of the entry date, as long as it is filed at least 15 days before liquidation. Miss that window and the next tool is a protest under 19 USC 1514, filed within 180 days of liquidation, which formally challenges what CBP decided. Two more mechanisms round out the map: duty drawback returns 99 percent of duties on goods later exported or destroyed within five years, and an unclaimed Section 301 exclusion can usually be recovered through a PSC or protest.
What does liquidation mean, and why do the deadlines hang off it?
Liquidation is the moment a customs entry becomes final. When you import, CBP accepts your entry with estimated duties, and liquidation is CBP officially closing the books on that entry and fixing what you truly owed. Most refund deadlines are measured against it. Before liquidation you can still correct an entry; after liquidation your window narrows to a protest; after final liquidation, with narrow exceptions, the entry is settled for good.
Who is allowed to file a duty refund claim?
All of these filings are customs business under 19 USC 1641, which means the importer of record itself or a licensed customs broker. PSCs, protests, drawback claims and CAPE declarations are filed by one of those two and nobody else, and an individual consumer cannot file at all. The useful rule for reading an import invoice: if the line went to CBP, ask us whether a mechanism can bring it back, and we take it up with the licensed customs broker we work with; if it went to a terminal or a carrier, work on making that line smaller next time.
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