Tariff Refund Companies Compared: Fees and Routes

The short answer

Only two parties can file. The importer of record, in its own ACE Portal account, or the licensed customs broker whose filer code is on the entries (CBP). Attorneys, CPA firms and consultants cannot submit a CAPE declaration.
CBP charges nothing. Any fee you pay is for someone's time, judgment or money.
Most refunds don't need a specialist. Entries that are unliquidated, or liquidated 80 days ago or less, go through CAPE with no lawsuit. CBP says valid refunds generally arrive 60 to 90 days after a declaration is accepted, with interest.
Paid help earns its fee on the hard cases. Protests within 180 days of liquidation, reconciliation and warehouse entries, rejected entries, large portfolios with customer pass-through claims, and finally liquidated entries that need a court case.

If you are still working out whether you qualify, start with our IEEPA tariff refund guide. This page compares the people who will help you collect it.

The five routes to a refund, compared

Fees below are the ones providers publish or that were reported on the record, checked November 8 and 9, 2026. Few firms publish anything, so treat this as a floor for what to ask, not a market survey.

Route	Who files	Typical fees	When it fits	Risks
File it yourself in CAPE	You, as importer of record, in the ACE Portal	$0. CBP charges no fees for refunds.	You have ACE access, your entries are unliquidated or within 80 days of liquidation, and someone can build a clean CSV of entry numbers.	An accepted declaration can't be amended or cancelled. Flexport reported that about 16% of entries across CAPE were rejected (its own figure, May 2026).
Your filing broker	Only the broker that filed the entries, under its own filer code	UPS: $300 per declaration up to 5,000 entries, $500 above that. Clearit: $200 plus 4% of the expected refund. Western Overseas: 5%, $500 minimum, capped at $20,000. Larger brokers reportedly sought 10% to 15%.	You lack ACE access or staff time, or you have thousands of entries with one broker.	A percentage on money CAPE would pay anyway. Some brokers route refunds through their own account. Scopes often exclude protests if CBP offsets or denies.
CPA, advisory firm or refund consultant	Nobody at the firm can file. You or your broker still submit.	Big CPA and advisory firms don't publish fees. Consultants quote 20% to 30% contingency; one earlier tier was $4,000 plus 12% to 15%.	Large or messy portfolios, rejected entries, accounting treatment, and refunds you may owe to customers.	Paying twice: once for the analysis and again for the filing. Contingency on refunds you would get anyway.
Trade law firm	Can't file CAPE. Files protests and Court of International Trade suits.	Firms we track don't publish fees. Class counsel typically seek 20% to 35%.	Finally liquidated entries, large dollar amounts, contract fights over who keeps the refund.	Your own suit takes you out of the importer class. Legal cost can exceed a small refund.
Sell the claim	A buyer pays you now. The refund is still claimed in your name.	Roughly 20 to 80 cents on the dollar, depending on timing and risk.	Finally liquidated entries with an uncertain outcome, or an urgent need for cash.	You give up 20% to 80% of a refund that CAPE may pay in full with interest. The buyer's legal right is still unsettled.

Sources: CBP, UPS refund options, Clearit price list, Western Overseas addendum, The Loadstar, Peacock Tariff Consulting, CITL blog, Sidley, BRG, Flexport.

What each fee model leaves you on a $100,000 refund

This is arithmetic on the published fee models above, not a quote. It assumes one CAPE declaration, entries the broker originally filed, and a refund CBP pays in full. The $1 million column shows why fee caps matter.

Fee model	Fee on $100,000	You keep	You keep on $1,000,000
File it yourself in CAPE	$0	$100,000	$1,000,000
Flat fee per declaration (UPS, $300 to $500)	$300 to $500	$99,500 to $99,700	$999,500 to $999,700
$200 plus 4% (Clearit)	$4,200	$95,800	$959,800
5%, capped at $20,000 (Western Overseas)	$5,000	$95,000	$980,000
10% to 15% (reported broker asks)	$10,000 to $15,000	$85,000 to $90,000	$850,000 to $900,000
20% to 30% contingency (consultants)	$20,000 to $30,000	$70,000 to $80,000	$700,000 to $800,000
20% to 35% (class counsel)	$20,000 to $35,000	$65,000 to $80,000	$650,000 to $800,000
Sell the claim at 80 cents	$20,000 discount	$80,000	$800,000
Sell the claim at 20 cents	$80,000 discount	$20,000	$200,000

Three things move these numbers in real life. UPS adds $250 an hour once work runs past the two hours its $500 minimum engagement covers. A consultant's fee usually sits on top of whatever your broker charges to file. And the refund itself includes interest under 19 U.S.C. 1505, which a buyer of your claim keeps (CBP). Ask every provider whether its percentage applies to interest too.

Your filing broker: who publishes a price

For most importers, the cheapest paid route is the broker that already filed the entries. It has your data, and its filer code matches. These are the brokers that published a CAPE fee or said how they charge:

UPS: $300 per declaration for up to 5,000 entries, or $500 for 5,001 to 9,900 entries. There is a $500 minimum engagement covering the first two hours, then $250 an hour. It covers entries UPS brokered. Shipments where UPS was itself the importer of record are refunded without customer action (UPS).
Clearit: $200 per filing plus 4% of the expected refund, with a $50 minimum on claims under $500. It charges a $200 minimum disbursement fee on proceeds from claims it did not file (Clearit).
Western Overseas: 5% of each entry's refund before offsets, $500 minimum, capped at $20,000. Its template addendum covers only entries it filed under its filer code. It routes refunds through the company's pooled bank account before paying them out, and it excludes audits and protests if CBP offsets or denies a refund (addendum).
Strix: a flat CAPE fee. The amount is not published (Strix).
Freight Right: a "small one-time fee", amount not published, and it prepares liquidated-entry files for partner counsel (Freight Right).

Not every broker is this restrained. In April 2026 The Loadstar reported claims by Baker Tilly trade adviser Pete Mento that some larger brokerages sought 10% to 15% of recovered duties, which he called opportunistic (The Loadstar). If your broker quotes a percentage, ask which clause in your signed brokerage agreement allows it.

One more thing to check: where the money lands. CBP's default is an ACH payment to the importer of record. A broker can only receive it if you route it there, for example by naming it as notify party on CBP Form 4811, which redirects refunds (CAPE notice). Keep the refund in your own account unless you have a clear reason not to.

CPA firms, advisory firms and refund consultants

None of these firms can file a CAPE declaration. What they sell is the work around the filing: finding the eligible entries in ACE data, checking the math, fixing rejected entries, booking the refund, and sorting out what you owe to customers who paid tariff surcharges.

Baker Tilly advises on CAPE eligibility, documents, reconciliation strategy and preserving refund rights (Baker Tilly).
RSM identifies eligible entries with its own analytics and prepares and validates CAPE data (RSM).
CohnReznick quantifies refunds and independently reviews refund calculations.
Ankura sizes exposure and helps allocate pass-through costs between customers and suppliers.

None of those four publishes a fee. Smaller consultants do. Peacock Tariff Consulting, an independent firm in Ontario, says it works on contingency at 20% to 30% of recovery for IEEPA refunds and drawback claims above $50,000, and on fixed fees of $2,500 to $25,000 for project work (Peacock, read November 9, 2026). The Tariff Bureau and Leyton both advertise contingency or success-based fees with nothing up front, without a public rate. On November 8, 2026, The Tariff Bureau's services page showed a tier of $4,000 plus 12% to 15% contingency. That tier was gone when we checked again on November 9.

A contingency fee makes sense when the consultant creates money you would not otherwise get, such as rejected entries it gets accepted or a protest it wins. It makes little sense on clean Phase 1 entries that CAPE pays on its own. Ask for the fee to apply only to recoveries above what a plain CAPE filing would have produced. Our tariff consultant guide covers how to vet one.

Tariff refund lawyer fees

A lawyer is the right call in two situations. One is a protest within 180 days of liquidation, which keeps an entry from becoming final. The other is a finally liquidated entry, which CBP currently refunds only through CAPE Phase 3, and only to importers with their own Court of International Trade case and a reliquidation order (Barnes & Thornburg).

The trade firms we track, including Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, GDLSK, Crowell & Moring, Thompson Hine and Kelley Drye, don't publish fees. The one public benchmark comes from the class action. In Freestyle World, certified on October 8, 2026, class counsel typically seek 20% to 35% of recovery, according to attorney David Craven (CITL blog). Certification alone pays nothing yet.

Timing matters more than price here. Suits under 28 U.S.C. 1581(i) have a two-year limit, and several firms say the earliest deadlines may start around February 4, 2027. When the clock starts is debated, and filing your own suit takes you out of the class (DWT). If you have significant finally liquidated entries, talk to counsel well before February.

Selling a tariff refund claim

Hedge funds and private credit funds buy or lend against refund claims. Reported prices ran from about 20 to 60 cents on the dollar early on, with 80 cents or more reported by late April 2026 (Sidley; BRG). Sen. John Hickenlooper wrote to CBP in March 2026 that intermediaries offered small businesses "as little as twenty cents on the dollar" (letter).

Because the Anti-Assignment Act generally bars assigning unpaid claims against the United States, these deals are built as contractual interests or secured loans, often around 50% loan-to-value (Sidley). Crowell & Moring notes the legal framework for transferring claims is still developing. Flexport says it can buy a claim and pay in as little as two weeks, but does not disclose its discount.

For entries CAPE can process, the trade rarely pays. You give up 20% or more to get cash maybe two months sooner. A sale is easier to defend for finally liquidated entries, where the Federal Circuit appeal could cut off refunds for non-plaintiffs, or when the business needs cash now.

Red flags and refund scams

CBP issued a scam warning on May 7, 2026, in CSMS #68569567. The only way to request an IEEPA refund is a CAPE declaration in the ACE Portal, CBP charges no fees, and it does not email CAPE updates. Real CBP email ends in @cbp.dhs.gov. Report suspicious contacts to IEEPAFraud@cbp.dhs.gov.

Walk away from any provider that:

contacts you out of the blue, quotes your real import history, and pushes you to sign this week (Parker Poe)
asks for your ACE password or wants to be added as an ACE user it doesn't need
says it will "file your CAPE claim" but is neither your filing broker nor you
wants to change your ACH refund account or become your Form 4811 notify party
charges an upfront fee for a "guaranteed" refund, or cites a deadline that isn't in a CBP notice or court order
offers to buy entries at a deep discount that CAPE can already process

Refund providers we track

These brokers, CPA firms and law firms publicly offer CAPE filing, refund analysis, protests or refund litigation. Each profile shows what the provider discloses about fees and who it serves. Inclusion is not paid. See how we rank providers.

UPS

Parcel carrier and customs broker

Refund filing from $300

Small importersIEEPA refunds

✓ Publishes prices
✓ Files CAPE refunds
– Duty drawback

Best for Importers whose entries UPS filed and who want a flat refund fee rather than a percentage