As tariff refunds begin moving through the system, many importers are seeing activity in the CAPE tab of the ACE Portal but are not yet seeing those entries appear in the refund reports. That can be confusing, but it does not necessarily mean something is wrong.

The key is knowing which reports to run, in what order, and what each report is designed to tell you.

Recommended order for checking your refund status

If you submitted entries through CAPE, we recommend checking reports in this order:

1. CAPE Tab / File Upload History

Start here to confirm that your CAPE declaration was submitted and accepted.

If the file shows as submitted, accepted, or accepted with errors, that tells you the file made it into the CAPE process. It does not necessarily mean CBP has finished reviewing the entry, calculated the refund, assigned a refund number, or sent the refund to Treasury.

2. ES-022 — CAPE Entry Summary Report

This should usually be the first ACE report you run after confirming the CAPE submission.

The ES-022 report is important because it can connect the CAPE declaration to the specific entry numbers and, once available, show refund-related information such as:

• refund amount;
• interest amount;
• refund number;
• refund date; and
• refund status.

If your entries appear in ES-022 but the refund-related columns are blank, that likely means the entries are still working through CBP’s process. In other words, CAPE may have accepted the file, but the refund has not yet been fully calculated, assigned, or transmitted.

3. ES-701 — Courtesy Notice of Liquidation

If ES-022 does not show the information you are looking for, or if you need to confirm whether an entry has liquidated, check ES-701.

This report can help you determine whether there has been liquidation activity tied to the entry. That matters because refund processing may depend on where the entry is in the liquidation and refund workflow.

4. REV-603 — Trade Refund Report

Do not panic if your entries do not immediately appear in REV-603.

This report is generally useful once a refund has moved farther along in the process, particularly after it has been sent to Treasury. If your entry is visible in the CAPE tab but not in REV-603, it may simply mean the refund has not reached the Treasury transmission stage yet.

5. REV-615 — CAPE Details Refunds Report

Once refund activity appears in REV-603, use REV-615 for more detailed entry-level information connected to CAPE refunds.

This can help you match specific refunds back to specific entry summaries.

6. REV-613 — ACH Rejected Refunds Report

Run this report if you expected payment but did not receive it, or if a refund appears to have been returned or rejected because of an ACH issue.

This is especially important if your ACE reports suggest a refund was processed but the money did not arrive in your account.

What if money hits your bank account but you do not know what it is for?

This is going to be one of the biggest practical questions for importers.

In many cases, refunds may not arrive as one clean payment tied to one entry. You may receive multiple refund transmissions, and a payment that appears in your bank account may represent a group of entries, a partial batch of entries, or a combination of principal refund and interest.

That means the bank deposit alone may not tell you enough.

To reconcile the payment, you will likely need to use the ACE reports to determine:

• which entries were included in the refund;
• how much of the payment was the actual tariff refund;
• how much was interest;
• whether multiple entries were bundled together; and
• whether additional refunds are still pending.

How to separate principal refund from interest

The key report to check is ES-022, because it should show the refund amount and interest amount separately once that data is available.

When the data appears, you should be able to compare:

Refund Amount = the actual tariff refund/principal
Interest Amount = interest paid on top of the refund
Total Expected Payment = refund amount + interest amount

For example:

If a bank deposit appears for $17,595, you would then know that the payment likely corresponds to those entries, with $17,000 in principal refund and $595 in interest.

Practical reconciliation steps

When a payment hits your account, we recommend doing the following:

1. Run REV-603 to see whether a refund has been sent to Treasury or issued.
2. Run REV-615 to look for entry-level CAPE refund details.
3. Run ES-022 to identify the specific refund amount, interest amount, refund number, and entry information.
4. Compare the total refund plus interest against the bank deposit.
5. Keep a spreadsheet showing each entry number, refund amount, interest amount, refund number, refund date, and payment received.
6. If the deposit does not match exactly, remember that it may represent only part of the refund batch, or there may be multiple transmissions still coming.

Bottom line

If your entries show as submitted or accepted in CAPE but do not appear in the refund report yet, start with ES-022, then check ES-701, and only then move to the refund reports.

A good working order is:

CAPE Tab → ES-022 → ES-701 → REV-603 → REV-615 → REV-613

And once money starts arriving, do not rely only on the bank deposit. Use the ACE reports to match the payment back to specific entries and determine how much of the payment was the actual refund and how much was interest.