Which Entries Qualify for CAPE: IEEPA Refund Eligibility by Date, HTS Code, and Liquidation Status

Your CFO already knows roughly how much IEEPA duty the company paid across 2025, because you pulled an ES-003 and handed up a number. The harder question is the one you are triaging now: of those entries, which can you actually put into a CAPE Declaration this week, and which will bounce at upload or, worse, sit past a deadline until the refund is gone for good. Getting this wrong is expensive in both directions. A 9,999-line declaration that rejects wastes a filing cycle, and a liquidated entry that ages past its window forecloses the refund permanently. This guide is the eligibility test itself: the three questions every entry has to pass, and the decision table that sorts your book into CAPE-now, protest, and wait-for-later.

An entry qualifies for a CAPE Phase 1 IEEPA refund only if it passes three tests at once. First, it carries a Chapter 99 IEEPA code, either 9903.01.xx (fentanyl and border) or 9903.02.xx (reciprocal). Second, it is unliquidated or was liquidated within the last 80 days. Third, it is not in an excluded category such as Reconciliation, Drawback, Duty Deferral, TIB, an open protest, or AD/CVD in pending liquidation. Miss any one test and the entry bounces, even if you paid IEEPA duty. Phase 1 covers most recent entries; the rest wait for a later phase or need a protest.

Primary sources: CBP CSMS #68340863 (CAPE for IEEPA Refunds) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, IEEPA Duty Refunds. Both are linked throughout and listed in full under References.

This post answers which entries qualify. For the end-to-end refund process, from ACE setup and the ES-003 pull to the filing steps and refund receipt, see the IEEPA tariff refund guide, which is the hub that this eligibility question sits inside. Here I am zooming in on the single triage decision that everything else depends on.

Which entries qualify for a CAPE IEEPA refund?

An entry qualifies for CAPE Phase 1 only if it passes three independent tests: a code test, a liquidation test, and an exclusion test. All three have to be true at the same time. The reason people misjudge eligibility is that they check one test, usually the code, and assume the entry is in. But an entry can carry a textbook 9903.02 reciprocal line, be worth real money, and still bounce because it liquidated 90 days ago or because it is tied to a drawback claim. I call this the three-gate test, and the entries that trip people up are the ones that clear two gates and fail the third.

Here is the test in one place.

Gate	The question	Passes if	Fails if
1. Code	Does the entry carry an IEEPA Chapter 99 line?	It has a 9903.01.xx or 9903.02.xx line	It only has Section 232, 301, or 122 Chapter 99 lines
2. Liquidation	Is the entry still inside the window?	Unliquidated, or liquidated within the last 80 days	Liquidated more than 80 days ago, or finally liquidated
3. Exclusion	Is the entry in a category CAPE cannot process?	None of the excluded types apply	Reconciliation, Drawback, Duty Deferral, TIB, open protest, AD/CVD pending, warehouse entry, non-ACE

CBP built CAPE, the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries function inside ACE, to reliquidate valid IEEPA entries in bulk rather than one refund at a time. Each of the three gates exists because it maps to something the bulk mechanism needs: a refundable duty line to remove, a reliquidation window that is still legally open, and an entry structure that does not conflict with reliquidation. Work the gates in order, because the code test tells you which entries even belong in the conversation, and the liquidation and exclusion tests tell you which of those go in now versus later.

Does my entry qualify if it has already liquidated?

Only if it liquidated within the last 80 days. CAPE Phase 1 accepts two liquidation states: unliquidated entries, and entries that liquidated recently enough to still sit inside the 90-day voluntary reliquidation window under 19 U.S.C. 1501. CBP has set the practical cutoff at 80 days from the liquidation date, reserving roughly ten days of the statutory ninety for its own processing. An entry liquidated 81 or more days ago is out of Phase 1 on the liquidation test alone, no matter how clean its IEEPA line is.

This is where the single most expensive mistake happens, and I call it the 80-day cliff. Importers who have read the general refund explainers know there is a 180-day protest deadline, so they mentally file every liquidated entry under "I have almost six months." But CAPE runs on a different, shorter clock. The protest clock is 180 days from liquidation; the CAPE clock is 80 days from liquidation. They start on the same event and run different lengths, and the CAPE clock is the tighter one. An entry that is perfectly IEEPA-bearing and only 100 days past liquidation is already too late for Phase 1, even though its protest right is still wide open.

One more detail that trips people up: the 80 days is measured against your CAPE submission date, not a frozen calendar date. It is a rolling window. An entry that is inside the window when you build your list on Monday can be outside it by the time you file two weeks later. Build the eligible list against the date you actually expect to submit, and leave margin. For the full mechanics of how the 80-day CAPE clock overlaps the 180-day protest clock, and how to sequence them so neither runs out, see the 180-day liquidation deadline guide.

Which HTS Chapter 99 codes make an entry eligible?

The eligibility test is specifically the 9903.01.xx family and the 9903.02.xx family, nothing else in Chapter 99. The 9903.01 heading covers the fentanyl and border IEEPA tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico; the 9903.02 heading covers the reciprocal IEEPA tariffs. Those are the two sets of tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (decided together with the consolidated reciprocal-tariff case, Trump v. V.O.S. Selections) on February 20, 2026, the ruling that created the refund right in the first place. If an entry does not carry at least one 9903.01 or 9903.02 line, there is no IEEPA duty on it to refund, and CAPE has nothing to remove.

The trap here is that Chapter 99 is shared real estate. Section 232 metals duties, Section 301 China duties, and Section 122 balance-of-payments surcharge duties all live under 9903 as well, just under different subheadings. Filter your entry data on "9903" alone and you will scoop up those non-IEEPA lines and over-count your eligible pool, then watch the extra entries reject. I call this the Chapter 99 lookalike trap, and it is why the filter has to be 9903.01 and 9903.02 by prefix, not the chapter as a whole. CBP publishes the official list of eligible codes; rather than enumerate all of them here, filter to the two prefixes and check anything ambiguous against CBP's published list and the current HTS at hts.usitc.gov.

This post uses the 9903.01/9903.02 split to test eligibility. For a deeper walkthrough of how to tell an IEEPA code from a Section 232, 301, or 122 lookalike on your own lines, including the subheading-by-subheading taxonomy, see the companion guide on which HTS codes carry IEEPA duties. Getting the code family right also decides the date math, since the two families started collecting on different dates: fentanyl and border duties from February 4, 2025, and reciprocal duties from April 5, 2025, with all IEEPA collection ending February 24, 2026.

Which entries are excluded from Phase 1, and why?

Phase 1 rejects a defined set of entry categories even when they carry a valid IEEPA line, because each category conflicts with how bulk reliquidation works. Knowing this list up front is what keeps a 9,999-line declaration from bouncing. Here is the exclusion list, drawn from CBP's CAPE guidance, with the reason each one is out.

Excluded category	Entry type or status	Why CAPE Phase 1 rejects it
Over 80 days past liquidation, or finally liquidated	Any	Outside the reliquidation window; liquidation is final
Reconciliation Summary	Entry Type 09	Reconciliation filing must resolve separately
Drawback	Entry Type 47	Duty already in a drawback claim path
Duty Deferral (USMCA)	Entry Type 08	Deferral mechanics conflict with reliquidation
Temporary Importation under Bond	Entry Type 23	No consumption duty to refund in the normal path
Open or suspended protest	Any	An open protest already controls the entry
AD/CVD in pending liquidation	Any	DOC liquidation instructions govern under 19 U.S.C. 1504(d)
Warehouse entry	Types 21 and 22	Rejected on CAPE Declarations since July 7, 2026
Not filed in ACE	Any	No ACE liquidation status to act on

Two of these have moved recently, and both matter for triage. First, reconciliation. Reconciliation-flagged entries were fully excluded at Phase 1 launch, but as of CAPE Phase 2 on June 29, 2026, CBP began accepting reconciliation-flagged entries (types 01, 02, and 06) where the Reconciliation Summary (Type 09) has not yet been filed, still limited to entries that are unliquidated or within 80 days of liquidation. Entries where the Type 09 has already been filed remain out. If you have entries flagged for reconciliation, do not assume they are permanently out; check current CAPE scope, and for the full treatment see CAPE reconciliation-flagged entries. Second, warehouse. Since July 7, 2026, warehouse entries themselves (Types 21 and 22) are rejected on a CAPE Declaration, but warehouse withdrawals (Types 31, 32, 34, 38) are still accepted, because IEEPA duty was paid at the time of withdrawal. That is a subtle entry-type distinction that can silently drop refundable duty if you file the entry rather than the withdrawal.

The broader point is that exclusion in Phase 1 is not the same as forfeiture. Some categories have already opened in Phase 2, and past-80-day and finally liquidated entries are the target of the Phase 3 work CBP has signaled for later, so watch when CAPE Phase 2 and later phases open and what they cover before you write any entry off.

How do I check my own entries?

You check eligibility by pulling the ES-003 report in ACE, adding the liquidation fields, and running the three gates against every line. The report is the ES-003 Entry Summary Line Tariff Details report in the ACE Portal, and it is the only standard report that carries tariff-line detail, which is exactly what you need to see the 9903 lines and their duty amounts. Here is the sequence.

1. Pull ES-003 under your Importer of Record account for the eligible window, February 4, 2025 through February 24, 2026. IEEPA data follows the IOR number, so a broker sub-account returns nothing. The step-by-step pull is covered in the ES-003 report guide.
2. Add Liquidation Date and Liquidation Status to the report. These fields are not on the default ES-003 template. Add them from the column picker before you run it, or you will see the duty but not the lane, and the 80-day test becomes invisible. I call skipping this the silent liquidation-status reject, because entries look eligible on screen and only fail at upload.
3. Export to Excel and filter the HTS column to 9903.01.xx and 9903.02.xx. That isolates the IEEPA lines and avoids the Chapter 99 lookalike trap. Sum the line duty for those lines to size the pool.
4. Run the liquidation gate. Sort by Liquidation Status and Liquidation Date. Unliquidated and liquidated-within-80-days go into the CAPE-now bucket; liquidated-past-80-days move to the protest bucket.
5. Run the exclusion gate. Flag anything that is reconciliation-linked, drawback-linked, Type 08, Type 23, under an open protest, AD/CVD in pending liquidation, or a warehouse entry. Pull those out of the CAPE-now bucket and route them.

What you end up with is three buckets: a clean Phase 1 list you can build a declaration from, a protest list on a 180-day clock, and a wait-for-later-phase list. For a compliance manager with 900 IEEPA entries and 40% already liquidated, that triage is the whole job, and it is entirely free to do in-house.

My entry is excluded, what do I do instead?

For any entry CAPE will not take, you preserve the refund through a protest under 19 U.S.C. 1514, filed within 180 days of liquidation. This is the safety net for the past-80-day pile and for excluded categories, and it runs on the longer of the two clocks, which is why a protective protest is often the right move even when you expect a later CAPE phase to eventually cover the entry. Missing the 180-day deadline is the one truly irreversible outcome here: a foreclosed protest right means the money is gone, not just delayed.

One coordination point worth flagging, because it saves entries: an open protest is itself a CAPE exclusion. So a protest filed solely to recover IEEPA duty on a liquidated entry can be withdrawn within 80 days of liquidation to let the entry flow through CAPE instead, which is usually the cleaner and faster refund path. Sequencing the withdrawal against both clocks is a judgment call, not a formula.

I am deliberately not re-teaching protest mechanics here, because this is the eligibility question, not the channel-decision question. Once you know an entry is ineligible for CAPE, deciding which channel to use instead, protest, Post Summary Correction, or a complaint at the Court of International Trade, is worked out in CAPE vs Protest vs PSC. And once your eligible list is built, run it through the CAPE Declaration filing checklist before upload, since a technically eligible list can still reject on formatting, filer authority, or data-integrity errors. On authority specifically, whoever files needs a valid power of attorney on record; the power of attorney requirements for a CAPE filer cover that gate.

A note on the moving legal picture

One honest caveat, because it changes the calculus for the past-80-day pile. The refund right rests on the Supreme Court's February 2026 ruling, but the government has appealed the Court of International Trade's refund order to the Federal Circuit, and that appeal specifically targets refunds for entries past the 80-day window. CBP has signaled that CAPE Phase 3, on track for around the end of July 2026 at the time of writing, will address finally liquidated entries, but the government's stated position in the appeal is that those later refunds may flow only to importers who have litigated at the Court of International Trade. Refunds for newer entries, the unliquidated and within-80-day ones that are the core of Phase 1, continue processing regardless of the appeal.

The practical takeaway is unchanged and, if anything, sharpened: file your clean Phase 1 entries now, and preserve rights on everything else with a protest rather than waiting on a later phase you cannot fully rely on yet. The forward-looking phase detail and the litigation posture belong to the CAPE Phase 2 and later scope guide; I am flagging it here only so you weight the past-80-day pile correctly.

When the triage stops scaling

Running the three gates against a few hundred entries is an afternoon in Excel, and every Importer of Record can and should do it in-house. I want to be clear about that before I mention what my team builds, because on an eligibility question, leading with product would be dishonest. The free path is the ES-003 pull, the three filters, and the three buckets, and for a modest book it gets you a defensible eligible list.

The manual triage starts to hurt at volume. When the book is 900 or 4,000 entries across multiple brokers, with 40% liquidated on different dates, a handful flagged for reconciliation, drawback claims in flight, and a rolling 80-day window shifting under you, the work is not the pull, it is the sorting: isolating 9903.01 and 9903.02 without pulling in Section 232 or 301 lookalikes, running the 80-day math against a moving submission date, applying the full exclusion list line by line, and keeping the protest deadlines from lapsing on the entries that do not make the CAPE cut. That is where GingerControl's IEEPA Refund Recovery service fits. It works from the ES-003 export you provide: it runs the code and liquidation filtering, applies the exclusion tests, buckets each entry into its lane, and includes an IEEPA refund calculator built on those ES-003 duty amounts, liquidation-status-driven eligibility, and the protest deadline.

To set expectations honestly, GingerControl is builder-not-broker, human-in-the-loop software and advisory. It does not connect to or pull from ACE for you, it is not the Importer of Record, it is not a licensed customs broker, it does not file your underlying customs entries, and it does not guarantee a refund amount or CBP acceptance. You still pull ES-003; the service turns a large, moving book into a clean, lane-bucketed eligible list and files the full refund package from it. The advisory piece is trade strategy, not legal counsel. Separately, the Tariff Calculator can break down the full tariff stack, including the Chapter 99 layers, if you want to model exposure before you triage.

FAQ

Which entries qualify for a CAPE IEEPA refund? An entry qualifies for Phase 1 only if it passes all three gates: it carries a 9903.01 or 9903.02 Chapter 99 line, it is unliquidated or liquidated within the last 80 days, and it is not in an excluded category (Reconciliation, Drawback, Duty Deferral, TIB, open protest, AD/CVD pending, warehouse entry, or non-ACE). Failing any one gate rejects the entry even when real IEEPA duty was paid.

Can I file CAPE on an entry that already liquidated? Yes, but only if it liquidated within the last 80 days, which keeps it inside the 90-day voluntary reliquidation window under 19 U.S.C. 1501. An entry liquidated 81 or more days ago is out of Phase 1 and must go the protest route instead.

Which HTS codes make an entry CAPE-eligible? The 9903.01.xx family (fentanyl and border) and the 9903.02.xx family (reciprocal). Other Chapter 99 codes for Section 232, 301, and 122 are not IEEPA and are not refundable through CAPE, so filter to those two prefixes specifically rather than to 9903 broadly.

What date range of IEEPA duties is refundable? Duties collected from February 4, 2025 through February 24, 2026. Fentanyl and border duties started February 4, 2025, reciprocal duties April 5, 2025, and all IEEPA collection stopped February 24, 2026.

Why was my entry excluded from CAPE Phase 1? Most likely because it liquidated more than 80 days ago, is finally liquidated, or falls in an excluded category: Reconciliation Summary (Type 09), Drawback (Type 47), Duty Deferral (Type 08), TIB (Type 23), an open or suspended protest, AD/CVD in pending liquidation, or a warehouse entry (Types 21/22). Some of these, like reconciliation-flagged entries, may qualify in a later phase.

Do I need to protest to preserve my IEEPA refund? For entries near or past the 80-day CAPE cliff, filing a protective protest within 180 days of liquidation is often the safe move, because missing that deadline forecloses the refund permanently. An open protest is itself a CAPE exclusion, so a protest filed only to recover IEEPA duty can be withdrawn within 80 days of liquidation to route the entry through CAPE instead.

Related resources

• IEEPA Tariff Refund Guide: ACE, CAPE Process and Deadlines, the hub for the whole refund process.
• How to Pull the ES-003 Report in ACE, the report you use to build your eligible list.
• Which HTS Codes Carry IEEPA Duties, the 9903.01 versus 9903.02 code taxonomy.
• How to File the CAPE Declaration Correctly, the filing step after your eligible list is built.
• Power of Attorney for a CAPE Filer, the filing-authority gate.
• CAPE vs Protest vs PSC, how to route entries CAPE will not take.
• The 180-Day Liquidation Deadline for IEEPA Protests and CAPE, the two-clock deep dive.
• CAPE Phase 2 Scope, Timeline, and Eligibility, for entries outside the Phase 1 window.

References

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection, "International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) Duty Refunds," accessed July 2026. cbp.gov
• CBP CSMS # 68340863, "UPDATE, Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) for IEEPA Refunds, April 20, 2026, Deployment." content.govdelivery.com
• CBP CSMS # 69127837, "UPDATE, Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) for IEEPA Refunds, Warehouse Entries." content.govdelivery.com
• CBP CSMS # 67834313, "Ending Collection of International Emergency Economic Powers Act Duties." content.govdelivery.com
• Supreme Court of the United States, Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287, decided February 20, 2026. supremecourt.gov
• Holland & Knight, "CAPE Has Arrived: A Guide to Navigating the Next Phase of IEEPA Duty Refunds," April 2026. hklaw.com
• Congressional Research Service, "Potential Refunds of Tariffs Imposed Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)," IF13150. congress.gov