US Broadlines & Hardlines Retail: Tariff refunds - when and how much?

Research evidence excerpt

US Broadlines & Hardlines Retail: Tariff refunds - when and how much?

24 June 2026

US Retailing Broadlines & Hardlines

US Broadlines & Hardlines Retail: Tariff refunds - when and how

much?

In late February, the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariff regime. Ever since, retailers Zhihan Ma, CFA

+1 917 344 8303 have applied for refunds of costs incurred. In this note, we review the state of play. How much

zhihan.ma@bernsteinsg.com can retailers expect, and when?

Jeremy Miles, CFA IEEPA-based tariffs totaled over $160B through Jan 2026, which could be subject

+1 917 344 8370 to refund. Using the Treasury Department’s CBP withdrawals data as a proxy, it appears jeremy.miles@bernsteinsg.com

that the first wave of tariff refunds started in May. YTD withdrawals are ~$34B over

last year’s level, which implies more to come. The CBP expects to process tariff refunds

typically within 60-90 days once a claim is successfully filed and accepted. Based on

this timeline, experts expect the majority of refunds to be received over the course of

the coming months (largely in retailers’ fiscal Q2 that ends in late July). This timeline was

corroborated by Costco management’s commentary; they expect to receive refunds in the

2-3 months following their June 3rd earnings date.

At the retailer level, we estimate direct tariff refunds to be in the ~35-75bps of US

sales range, assuming a 40% refund success rate on claims on six months of IEEPA tariffs

paid. Across our coverage, this is equivalent to ~$5.7B in tariff refunds in aggregate. These

estimates are subject to the proportion of goods for which each retailer is the “importer of

record”. We assume this roughly corresponds to each retailer’s private label exposure.