The Strange New Market for Trump Tariff Refunds – and Whether You Can Legally Sell Yours

When the Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (consolidated with Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc.) that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (“IEEPA”) does not authorize the imposition of tariffs, notwithstanding the fact that this decision was more or less obvious and had been telegraphed for months, it created what might be the largest customs refund pool in American history. Estimates of the total amount of duties paid by U.S. importers in respect of these “Trump Tariffs” run from $130 billion to $180 billion, with some sources suggesting north of $195 billion. Whatever the exact figure, the result is that a large, identifiable group of U.S. companies suddenly hold what amounts to a significant claim against the U.S. government.

What you may not have noticed is that, somewhere between the Federal Circuit ruling against the tariffs in mid-2025 and the Supreme Court affirming that ruling in early 2026, Wall Street built a market to trade those claims.

If you are an importer who paid IEEPA duties, or if you are just curious about one of the more unusual financial structures of the past several years, there is a lot going on here that is worth understanding.

When you pay duties to U.S. Customs and Border Protection on an import (and to be clear, the “you” that is paying here is you the importer middleman — not the customer who pays a higher price at the checkout counter, and certainly not the foreign country, who pays nothing at all), those duties are entered against a “customs entry,” basically a record of a particular shipment. After CBP “liquidates” the entry (the formal step that finalizes the duty assessment), the duty payment is locked in. If a court later rules that part of the duty was improperly collected, 19 U.S.C. § 1505(b) requires CBP to refund the “excess moneys deposited” with interest, within 30 days of the entry being liquidated or reliquidated to reflect the correct rate.

And that is exactly what happened.

So when Learning Resources came down, importers of record who had paid IEEPA duties were holding statutory refund claims. But, here’s the catch: to actually get paid, the entry has to be processed through CBP’s new Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (“CAPE”) system, the entry must not be subject to one of the categorical exclusions (reconciliation, drawback, USMCA duty-deferral, suspended antidumping/countervailing duty, surety-paid, etc.), and the importer has to navigate a complex set of procedural requirements that we won’t get into here.

Oh, and the government has not abandoned the fight — with the president signaling his apparent intention to attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision by other means. For example, the government’s appeal deadline on the Court of International Trade’s nationwide refund order in Euro-Notions Florida, Inc. v. U.S. Customs and Border Protection runs into early June 2026. A successful appeal could stay the entire refund process. The administration has also imposed replacement tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 (a 10% additional tariff on most imports effective February 24, 2026), though those have a hard 150-day statutory limit and expire around July 24, 2026 unless Congress extends them.

The point, in case we’ve gotten too far into the weeds with all that: even though the Supreme Court has ruled in importers’ favor, getting the money is a slow, technical, contested, and uncertain process that the government doesn’t appear to be inclined to expedite. It could take months. It could take years. Some claims may be reduced or denied. Some may be fully paid. Some may be paid with a significant delay. No one knows yet.

This is exactly the kind of uncertainty Wall Street loves.

Sometime around November 2025, well before the Supreme Court ruled, a few specialized trading desks at investment banks and a handful of distressed-asset hedge funds noticed that IEEPA tariffs were facing serious legal headwinds. The Court of International Trade had ruled against the tariffs. The Federal Circuit had affirmed. The Supreme Court had granted certiorari. To anyone watching closely, the probability of refunds being ordered was quite high.

To pat myself on the back a little bit, yours truly cautiously predicted this outcome in November of 2025 as well.

What eventually emerged was a secondary market for the claims themselves. Here’s how it works. An importer that has paid IEEPA duties assigns its right to the eventual refund to a hedge fund or other purchaser. In exchange, the importer gets immediate cash, at a discount. The purchaser takes on all of the risk: the risk that the refund process drags on for years, the risk that the appeal succeeds, the risk that CBP offsets the refund against other duties, the risk that consumer class actions or business customer recoupment claims eat into the recovery, the risk of unexpected procedural exclusions.

In return, the purchaser keeps the entire refund if and when it arrives.

Pricing has moved over time, roughly as you would expect.

• Pre-Supreme Court ruling (late 2025): Claims traded at around 20 cents on the dollar, reflecting some uncertainty about whether the tariffs would ultimately be ruled unlawful, but also significant uncertainty about when and how the process would unfold, as well as (sad to say) presumably some risk about whether the president would attempt to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling or simply refuse to issue refunds.
• Immediately post-ruling (February 2026): SCOTUS says the tariffs are unconstitutional. Prices roughly doubled, to around 40 cents on the dollar. Significantly higher, but still reflecting the time-value of money and uncertainty about process and legal expense (would you have to formally sue CBP to get your refund??)
• Recent reporting (March–April 2026): Trades have been pricing at approximately 45 cents on average, with some reporting trades as high as 60 cents on the dollar.

The market has grown fast. NPR’s reporting in early March 2026 described “a couple of hundred million dollars” of completed trades and a potential pipeline of “as much as a billion dollars.” Industry participants quoted in Fortune described a potential market size of as much as $100 billion. One broker called it “a $40 billion opportunity” and added: “I think that’s a low estimate.” A separate market for loans secured by refund claims has also emerged, typically structured at 50% loan-to-value with payment-in-kind interest and minimum loan sizes around $10 million against claims of at least $20 million.

The major players, based on public reporting, include hedge funds and credit shops that specialize in legal claims and government policy trades (King Street Capital, Anchorage Capital, Fulcrum Capital), alongside intermediary brokers like Seaport Global. Cantor Fitzgerald, where Brandon Lutnick (son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick) is chair, has been reported as an active participant. That fact drew a letter from Rep. Jamie Raskin in late February 2026 demanding investigation into potential conflicts of interest related to the older Lutnick’s cabinet role. Sen. Ed Markey separately wrote to Trump administration officials warning that “investment banks are profiteering from the delay” and calling for an investigation. The trades themselves, independent of any conflict-of-interest questions, appear to be entirely legal.

Here is the question most importers eventually arrive at: can I just sell this thing?

The short answer is yes, but with meaningful caveats and a real risk of structural complications.

The Assignment of Claims Act. The federal statute most directly relevant is 31 U.S.C. § 3727, the Assignment of Claims Act (“ACA”). The ACA provides that an assignment of a claim against the United States is valid only after the claim has been allowed, the amount has been decided, and a warrant for payment has been issued. Its definition of “assignment” is broad and covers “a transfer or assignment of any part of a claim against the United States Government or of an interest in the claim, or the authorization to receive payment for any part of the claim.”

Read literally, the ACA appears to prohibit selling your tariff refund claim before CBP has actually processed it, decided the amount, and issued a warrant for payment. For most IEEPA refund claims today, none of those conditions has been met.

Enter the Ninth Circuit. The story does not end here. In United States v. Kim, 806 F.3d 1161 (9th Cir. 2015), the Ninth Circuit drew a critical distinction between an assignment (an assignee stepping into the shoes of the original claimant and seeking payment from the government directly — prohibited under the ACA) and a lien or interest in proceeds once paid to the original claimant (permitted under the ACA!).

What this means in practice: a structure that has the original importer continue to pursue the claim and receive payment from CBP, with the purchaser holding rights to the proceeds once received, is likely permissible. This is, in effect, the structure most claim purchasers and their counsel are using.

But the law is not settled. Kim is a Ninth Circuit decision. It has not been adopted by every circuit, and its extension from attorney’s liens to UCC Article 9 security interests in tariff refund claims has not been tested. For example, Sidley Austin cautions that the ACA “may present greater risk for outright purchasers of tariff refund claims,” precisely because the statutory prerequisites for valid assignment (that the claim be “allowed,” the amount “decided,” and a “warrant for payment” issued) are not satisfied for most IEEPA claims today.

Remember when we were talking about risk premiums above? Yeah.

In any event, the practical consequence is that buyers and sellers alike are structuring these deals very carefully, but nonetheless the market is there.

There is no universal answer. The case for selling is straightforward: certainty now versus uncertainty later, and freedom from the administrative burden of pursuing the claim. Cash today is worth more than maybe-cash some-undefined-time-later, especially for a business that is short on liquidity, has supply chain pressures, has senior debt to service, or just does not want to spend the next three years thinking about CAPE declarations and protest filings. The discount you accept (currently around 50% on average) is the price you pay for that certainty and convenience.

The case for holding is also straightforward: you may end up receiving the full refund, plus statutory interest, and the discount you would have given up to a hedge fund stays in your pocket. If you have the patience, the cash, and the confidence to navigate the process, holding may produce significantly more value over time. Some importers, especially those whose customers know exactly how much extra they paid in pass-through tariffs, may also want to maximize what they ultimately collect so they can pass on appropriate refunds. That calculation may not be captured by the discount on a hedge fund offer.

For most mid-sized businesses, the realistic options are some version of (a) hold and pursue with customs counsel, (b) sell at current market prices and move on, or (c) borrow against the claim using it as collateral, which captures some immediate liquidity without giving up the full upside. None of these is automatically right or wrong; the right answer depends on your liquidity needs, your other priorities, and your tolerance for the litigation risk that the government’s appeal may extend the timeline by years.

What I would not do is enter into any structure (sale, financing, or otherwise) without counsel that understands both the customs side and the commercial side. The market for these claims is genuinely new, much of the legal terrain is untested, and the stakes are large. There is no template playbook here; every transaction is bespoke.

If you have IEEPA refund exposure and want to talk through your options, give us a call. This is an unusual moment in U.S. trade and finance law, and the importers who think it through carefully now will be in considerably better positions than the ones who do not.