If your brand sells DDP into the US, the recent US Supreme Court decision will probably let you claim six or seven figures of customs duties. But although the refund process has not been disclosed, it will likely not be automatic. Here are 5 actionnable recommendations for non-US DDP sellers.

1. Know exactly who your IOR is and who paid CBP for duties.

The first non‑negotiable step is identifying who appears as the IOR on your U.S. entries (aka form 7501) and who actually funded the duties: your business, the carrier, or the end consumer.

In many DDP arrangements, the IOR is either the express carrier or the consignee. It is rarely the foreign retailer unless you’ve intentionally registered as a Foreign IOR. One way to check the entity acting as the IOR is to obtain a copy of the 7501 form (your broker should be able to send you one). All details about the IOR are shown on that form.

Because the Court of International Trade has not yet established a formal procedure for IEEPA‑related duty refunds, it remains unclear whether eligibility will rest with the IOR or the party that paid CBP. Either way, understanding each entity’s role in your customs process is essential preparation for what’s ahead.

2. Review commercial contracts for refund rights

Once you know who the IOR and payor is, the next step is to review the terms you agreed with the broker (or the carrier in case of integrated services) to confirm whether duty refunds are explicitly in scope. POAs authorise brokers to make entries, handle classification and manage post‑entry corrections, but they remain silent on who owns any recovered duties and how they must be passed back to the underlying customer. If your contracts do not clearly state that any refunds, credits or recoveries, including from duty drawback or tariff‑specific refund programs, belong to your brand, your partner is not legally obliged to transfer the money and the discussion becomes one of commercial leverage rather than clear entitlement.

For finance and legal teams, this is the moment to introduce precise refund language in new and renewal contracts, including: (a) a duty refund assignment clause, (b) a commitment to support drawback or refund claims with data and documentation, and (c) a service‑level framework around timing and audit access. In parallel, you should revisit older agreements and identify where renegotiation is needed, particularly on high‑volume lanes such as EU‑to‑US apparel flows that are heavily impacted by section 301 duties. A short internal playbook that your procurement and logistics teams can use during RFPs, summarising “non‑negotiable” refund wording, is often enough to bake this protection into your operating model going forward.

3. Estimate your real refund opportunity with ACE ES003 report.

No CFO will dedicate resources to a refund process without a credible order of magnitude for potential recovery. Because the Supreme Court ruling only concerns IEEPA‑based tariffs and leaves a broad range of other US duties untouched, you need a data‑driven estimate of which part of your tariff bill is actually linked to affected 301 or IEEPA lines and which portion is standard MFN or other duty types that remain payable. A practical way to start is by pulling a section 301 report from your ACE Secure Data Portal account and isolating both the total 301 duties paid and the subset that falls under the IEEPA‑related scope.

Once you have that report, overlay it with your sales and returns data for the same period to avoid double‑counting duties that are already being addressed through duty drawback on re‑exports or duty‑free returns programs. Many retailers discover that a relatively concentrated group of HTS codes and suppliers accounts for the majority of their 301 exposure, which makes it easier to run targeted pilots rather than a company‑wide rollout from day one. External partners like Trade Duty Refund can accelerate this work by cleaning ACE data, identifying eligible 301 lines, excluding non‑refundable components, and delivering a quantified “size of the prize” that finance can compare against internal costs and resource constraints.

4. Evaluate the impact on customer experience and brand equity

For DDP e‑commerce sellers, duties are often presented to customers at checkout as part of a transparent landed‑cost experience, which means any post‑facto refund raises the question: do we pass this back to the shopper, or do we retain it to offset past costs? From a pure cash perspective, keeping the refund may appear attractive; from a customer‑lifetime‑value and brand‑trust angle, proactively sharing all or part of the recovered duties with customers can be far more powerful, particularly in premium segments where repeat purchase and word‑of‑mouth are crucial.

Issuing partial credits, loyalty points or targeted campaigns to impacted customers can turn a complex legal outcome into a memorable service gesture.

5. Prepare documentation before you file a single claim

Even the most compelling 301 or IEEPA refund opportunity will stall without solid documentation that convinces CBP that your claim is legitimate. At a minimum, you should expect to provide: commercial invoices that clearly tie back to specific US entries, the ACE‑sourced ES003 report that shows duties paid per HTS, and the CBP Form 7501 entry summaries for the period in scope. In practice, additional records, such as proof of payment, internal accounting entries, contracts demonstrating who bore the duty cost and relevant customer documentation where refunds are passed on—can significantly reduce queries and the risk of post‑refund audits.

For brands that already run duty drawback, there is also a coordination issue: you must ensure that the same duties are not claimed twice under different mechanisms, and that any refund flows are properly reconciled in your ERP and tax reporting. Building a central “duty refund” dossier for each claim window, digitally organised by period, HTS, supplier and IOR—allows your teams and external advisors to work from a single source of truth and to respond quickly if CBP or other agencies request clarifications. Starting this documentation effort early, before formal claims are prepared, avoids last‑minute scrambles and allows you to gracefully scale from a pilot covering a handful of lanes to a global, multi‑year recovery program if the initial results justify it.

Trade Duty Refund specializes in customs duty reclamation for international e-commerce and import/export businesses. We will support quantifying your refund amount and filling for IEEPA reclaim. Contact our team to discuss your specific situation.