By Zoe Tillman | Updated on Oct 08, 2026 at 10:00 PM
A US trade judge approved class-action status for a legal fight over refunds for President Donald Trump’s global tariffs, siding with importers who contend that the process will make it easier for a wider group of companies to get their money back.
Customs authorities already have fully processed almost $130 billion in refunds since the US Supreme Court declared Trump’s tariffs unlawful earlier in the year, according to court filings. Judge Richard Eaton, in an order Thursday , certified a group lawsuit representing all importers who haven’t already submitted claims for payments.
Eaton’s decision opens the door to an eventual order requiring Customs and Border Protection to recalculate tariffs for all of the remaining importers included in the class and refund the difference.
Importers paid more than $166 billion in Trump’s contested tariffs before they were struck down. The final amount at issue is larger because refunds include any interest that accrued after the original duties were collected by the government. The Trump administration hasn’t offered an estimate for how much interest it would ultimately have to pay, but Eaton said it could run in the billions of dollars.
The administration had argued that importers with certain types of refund claims must file their own lawsuits. That prompted importers already seeking repayment to try to expand the existing litigation to cover a broader group of companies, arguing that a class action would help small businesses that don’t have the resources to sue.
Eaton wrote that without class-action status, tens of thousands of importers might not get money they’re entitled to receive and the government would be able to keep “billions of dollars of unlawfully collected duties.” He credited Customs and Border Protection for successfully launching an online portal to process earlier rounds of refund claims, and said that progress undercut the government’s arguments against ordering class-wide relief now for importers.
“The automated program has resulted in over $126 billion in actual refunds,” he wrote. “These facts are not recited to minimize the work of Customs. Rather, they demonstrate that by exercising its remarkable expertise, Customs can, and has, turned an otherwise labor-intensive task of formidable proportions, into a manageable, automated one.”
Lawyers for Freestyle World Inc., a baby products company that Eaton selected as a representative case for the broader universe of refund lawsuits, said in a joint statement that they “look forward to working collaboratively with the court, CBP and all other parties to build on the strong foundations already in place to expand and expedite that refund process.”
“For importers across the country who paid the IEEPA tariffs — individuals and businesses small as well as large — the tariff refund process has brought unexpected economic, logistical and practical challenges,” said attorneys Lawrence Friedman, Elizabeth Cabraser and Nicholas Diamand. “Today’s certification of a nationwide class is a vital step toward informing and empowering all importers, not just those with the means to file suit, to recover illegally imposed IEEPA duties.”
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. Spokespeople for Customs and Border Protection and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Eaton was specially assigned by the New York-based US Court of International Trade to oversee the tariff refund litigation following the Supreme Court’s decision in February striking down Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the global duties.
Before the class-action dispute arose, Eaton had entered a sweeping order directing the administration to refund tariffs paid by all importers, regardless of whether they filed a lawsuit. The Justice Department is appealing that ruling, arguing that the judge lacked authority to impose a universal injunction that applied beyond parties with a formal role in court.
The Justice Department argued that Customs and Border Protection doesn’t have legal authority to recalculate and refund tariffs with what’s known as “final” status, and that it can only do that if a judge orders it, meaning those importers must file a lawsuit before the trade court. Eaton said that more than 4,000 lawsuits representing 7,000 plaintiffs had been filed so far. According to the administration, the tariffs were paid by about 330,000 importers.
The government hasn’t shared in court filings how many importers have successfully recovered refunds using the online portal to date, but Eaton wrote in his order that the class would cover tens of thousands.
Against the backdrop of the ongoing fight over refunds for Trump’s original attempt at global tariffs, more lawsuits are pending over his latest effort to impose sweeping levies under a different authority, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Earlier this month, a three-judge US trade court panel heard arguments on whether those tariffs are lawful. Eaton isn’t involved in that case.
Trump has said that the new tariffs on imports from about 60 economies is needed to address allegations of forced labor. Small businesses and Democratic state officials who are suing contend the president’s latest policy is an unlawful effort at replacing the duties the Supreme Court struck down.
The case is Freestyle World Inc. v. Customs and Border Protection, 26-cv-1088, US Court of International Trade (New York).