FedEx has sued the United States government seeking a full refund of the tariffs it paid under the Trump-era emergency-powers duties that the Supreme Court recently struck down, in what is reported to be the first refund claim by a major corporation since the court’s landmark ruling. The shipping and logistics giant filed its case in the United States Court of International Trade, the specialist trade court in New York that handles challenges to customs duties, asking the court to order the return of every dollar of the challenged duties it paid as an importer. The company has not disclosed a specific dollar figure for its own claim, and the filing instead seeks a complete refund of all of the duties at issue, however large that total proves to be when the records are examined.
The lawsuit is the opening move in what trade lawyers expect to become a much larger legal battle over money already collected at American ports and borders. Reports put the total collected under the challenged duties at about 175 billion dollars, a sum that explains why a single company’s claim has drawn attention far beyond the logistics industry. If FedEx succeeds, other importers are expected to follow with claims of their own, and the courts and the customs authorities will have to work out how, and how quickly, such refunds could be paid, and to whom. If the government resists, the dispute could run for months or years, even though the underlying question of whether the duties were lawful has now been answered by the highest court in the country.
FedEx is an unusually visible claimant because its business sits at the centre of global trade. The company does not only move packages for other people. It also imports goods itself, and it pays duties on imports it transports on behalf of its customers, acting in many cases as the importer of record. That dual role is central to its argument. In its complaint, the company says it suffered injury from the duties because it was responsible for paying them, and it argues that, as an importer, it is entitled to seek their return directly from the government agency that collected them. The case is brought by Federal Express Corporation and FedEx Logistics, Inc., and it names three defendants: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Rodney S. Scott in his official capacity as Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the United States of America.
What the FedEx tariff refund lawsuit asks the trade court to decide
The legal path to the trade court was set out by the Supreme Court itself. In its ruling, the court confirmed that challenges to the challenged duties fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of International Trade, which means that refund claims of this kind belong in that court rather than in an ordinary federal district court. FedEx relies on that point directly. Its complaint argues that the trade court therefore has both the jurisdiction and the authority to order remedial relief, including refunds of the duties paid by importers. The company’s request is deliberately broad: a full refund of all of the challenged duties it has paid to the United States, rather than a partial repayment or a refund limited to a particular shipment, period or category of goods.
The duties at the heart of the case were imposed beginning in February 2025 through a series of executive orders. The orders invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 statute known as IEEPA, as the authority for imposing new and substantial tariffs on goods imported from nearly every foreign country. FedEx says the imports it sources, and the imports it transports for its customers, were caught by those orders, and that it was responsible for paying the resulting duties. The Supreme Court has now held that IEEPA does not authorise the president to impose tariffs, a conclusion that removes the legal foundation on which the duties rested. FedEx argues that the consequence should follow naturally: duties collected without lawful authority should be returned.
That argument sounds straightforward, but the refund question is where the case becomes complicated. A ruling that a tariff was unlawful does not by itself create a payment system for returning the money. Customs records must be checked, entries must be identified, and the government must decide who is entitled to the refund when the economic burden of a duty may have been shared between an importer, a shipper and an end customer. FedEx itself has acknowledged that difficulty in its public statements. The company has said that, while the Supreme Court did not rule on refunds, it has taken the necessary steps to protect its legal rights as an importer of record to pursue duty refunds from Customs and Border Protection, and that no refund process has yet been established by regulators or the courts. The lawsuit is, in that sense, both a claim for money and an attempt to force the creation of a process.
The Supreme Court ruling that struck down the IEEPA tariffs
The Supreme Court decided the tariff question by a 6-3 vote, holding that the emergency-powers statute invoked by the administration could not be used to impose tariffs. The majority reasoned that the power to impose taxes and duties belongs to Congress under the Constitution, and that the language of IEEPA, which allows the president to regulate importation in a national emergency, does not clearly grant the power to levy tariffs. The decision affirmed an earlier ruling by the Federal Circuit, which had in turn upheld the trade court’s judgment on the merits, and it closed the door on using IEEPA as a tariff authority in future. The case is known as Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, and it grew out of challenges first filed in the trade court in April 2025 by companies contesting the tariff orders.
The ruling was a major defeat for a central part of the administration’s economic programme. Tariffs had become a defining tool of that programme, applied to goods from most countries in the world and presented as leverage in trade negotiations and as a source of government revenue. The court’s decision did not question the idea that Congress can impose tariffs, nor did it prevent the president from seeking tariffs under other statutes that do grant that power expressly. What it did was reject the particular legal theory on which the IEEPA duties rested, and in doing so it marked the first time the court had struck down a policy of the president’s second term in this way. That context helps explain both the political reaction to the ruling and the scale of the refund fight that has followed it.
Crucially, the majority opinion did not decide the refund question. It held that the tariffs were unlawful and affirmed the judgments below, but it did not set out who should be repaid, in what order, or through what mechanism. That silence is now the most important feature of the ruling for businesses that paid the duties. A company that wants its money back cannot simply point to the Supreme Court’s decision and expect a cheque. It must bring a claim, prove what it paid, and persuade a court or the customs authorities that a refund is the proper remedy. FedEx is the first major company reported to have taken that step, but trade specialists expect it will not be the last, and the trade court may soon face a large number of similar claims.
What the court did and did not decide on refunds
The distinction between striking down a tariff and ordering a refund matters for every importer watching this case. The Supreme Court decided the question of authority: whether the president could impose these tariffs under IEEPA. It answered that question in the negative. It did not decide whether every dollar collected must be returned, whether importers who passed the cost on to customers should still receive a refund, or whether the government can raise defences based on timing, procedure or the way individual customs entries were filed. Those questions were left for lower courts and for the refund process itself, and they are likely to be contested in detail.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing in dissent with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, drew attention to exactly that gap. The dissenters disagreed with the majority on the underlying question of authority, arguing that the statute’s broad powers, including the power to impose quotas and embargoes, supported the lesser power to impose tariffs, and pointing to historical examples of tariffs imposed under a predecessor statute. But it was Kavanaugh’s warning about refunds that has been most widely quoted since the ruling. He observed that the court was silent about whether, and if so how, the federal government should go about refunding the vast sums collected from importers, and he warned that refunds of billions of dollars would have significant consequences for the Treasury and that the process was likely to be messy. That warning is now quoted by both sides: by importers, as a sign that refunds are a live and serious question, and by those cautious about refunds, as a sign of the practical difficulties involved.
The dissent also identified other statutory bases the president might rely on to impose tariffs in future, a point that matters for businesses trying to plan ahead. Even if refunds are eventually paid for the IEEPA duties, companies may face new duties imposed under different laws, and the overall tariff burden on their imports may not fall by as much as the Supreme Court’s ruling alone might suggest. The refund fight is therefore only one part of a larger trade picture, in which the legal authority for tariffs is shifting rather than disappearing. For importers, the immediate question is backward-looking, about money already paid, while the longer question is forward-looking, about what duties will apply to future shipments.
The company position: why FedEx says it is owed a full refund
FedEx’s position is that the logic of the Supreme Court’s ruling leads directly to a refund. If the duties were imposed without lawful authority, the company argues, then the money was not lawfully collected, and the government should return it to the importer that paid it. The complaint describes the company as an importer of merchandise subject to the challenged duties and says it is responsible for paying those duties on the imported goods, both for its own imports and for imports it moves for customers. On that basis, it seeks a full refund for itself, without conceding that any part of what it paid should be retained by the government.
The company has also framed its lawsuit as a protective step, not only as a demand for immediate payment. By filing in the trade court, FedEx preserves its rights as an importer of record while the refund process is still unresolved. That framing matters because customs law places great weight on deadlines, protests and the precise status of the party that paid the duty. A company that waits for the government to announce a refund scheme risks losing its claim if it misses a procedural step, while a company that files promptly keeps its options open. FedEx’s public statement reflects that caution: it emphasises that it has acted to safeguard its rights, even though the court did not rule on refunds and no refund process has yet been established.
There is also a commercial dimension that the lawsuit does not resolve on its own. In many supply chains, the importer that pays a duty at the border is not the party that ultimately bears its cost. A logistics company may pay the duty and then bill the shipper, which may in turn pass the cost to a retailer or a consumer through higher prices. That chain raises a difficult question about who should benefit if a refund is paid: the importer of record, the shipper that reimbursed the importer, or the consumer who ultimately paid more. Customs regulations generally provide that refunds are paid to the importer of record, but the trade court revised its filing forms in January 2026, in anticipation of a wave of claims, to require plaintiffs to identify any third-party financing supporting their claim. That change signals that the court expects the question of who ultimately benefits from a refund to be examined, not assumed.
The administration position: new tariffs and no refund scheme yet
The administration’s response to the Supreme Court’s ruling has not been to accept the refund logic, but to insist that its trade policy remains unchanged even as the legal tools change. The president sharply criticised the court’s decision after it was issued and said it would not slow his plans. Within a short period, he announced a new worldwide tariff, initially set at ten percent and then raised to fifteen percent within less than a day, imposed under different statutory authorities. The message from the administration was that the loss of IEEPA as a tariff tool would be met by the use of other laws, and that the broader strategy of using tariffs as negotiating leverage would continue.
Senior trade officials have echoed that message. The administration’s trade negotiator has said that trade policy has not changed, that only the legal mechanisms implementing it may change, and that the tariff strategy continues to give American business leverage in world trade. That position does not directly answer the refund question, and no refund scheme has been announced in the reporting on the FedEx case. The absence of such a scheme is itself significant. Until the government sets out a process, or a court orders one, importers have no administrative route to reclaim the duties, which is why litigation in the trade court has become the route of first resort for companies seeking repayment.
The administration’s stance also reflects the fiscal stakes. Refunding a large share of about 175 billion dollars would be a major outlay for the Treasury, and officials and commentators have noted that such refunds would have significant consequences for the federal budget. That fiscal reality does not determine the legal question, but it helps explain why the government is unlikely to volunteer a broad refund programme without being compelled to do so, and why the refund litigation is expected to be hard fought. The government may argue about procedure, timing, standing, or the extent to which costs were passed on, even if it does not relitigate the underlying lawfulness of the duties themselves, which the Supreme Court has now settled.
What happens next for other importers
For other importers, the FedEx case provides both a template and a warning. The template is the route itself: a claim in the Court of International Trade, naming Customs and Border Protection and the United States as defendants, seeking a full refund of the challenged duties paid. Companies that paid IEEPA duties and that wish to preserve their claims are likely to be advised to examine their customs entries, confirm their status as importer of record, and consider filing promptly rather than waiting for a government process that may never arrive in the form they hope for. The warning is that filing is only the beginning. The court will have to decide questions about eligibility, proof of payment, pass-through of costs, and the treatment of claims financed by third parties, and those questions may produce different outcomes for different importers.
The scale of the potential litigation is another reason the FedEx filing matters beyond the company itself. Reports of the case have described it as the first attempt by a major corporation to recover its share of the duties collected, with other companies expected to follow. Trade specialists have noted that some refund claims were filed even before the Supreme Court published its opinion, in anticipation of a ruling against the duties. That early filing activity suggests that the trade court could face a substantial docket of refund cases, and that the way the first cases are handled may set patterns for the rest. The court’s handling of procedural questions, such as how claims are grouped, what evidence is required, and how quickly cases move, will therefore affect a large number of businesses beyond FedEx.
Consumers and smaller businesses are also watching, even though they are not the parties to this lawsuit. If refunds are paid to importers of record, questions will follow about whether any of that money reaches the shippers and customers who ultimately bore the cost through higher prices. FedEx has not, in the reporting on this filing, set out a detailed plan for distributing any refund it receives, and the lawsuit itself seeks a refund for the company rather than for its customers directly. That gap may generate further disputes, including claims by customers who argue that they, rather than the importer, should benefit. For now, the lawsuit establishes the central claim, that the duties should be returned, while leaving the question of ultimate benefit for later proceedings and, possibly, for separate litigation.
The broader lesson of the case is that a Supreme Court ruling, even a clear one, rarely ends a dispute of this size on its own. The court settled the question of authority, but the questions of remedy, procedure and distribution remain open, and they will be worked out in the trade court, in negotiations between importers and the government, and potentially in Congress, which could legislate a refund process if it chose to do so. FedEx has fired the starting gun in that next phase. Whether it recovers the full amount it seeks, a lesser amount, or nothing at all will depend on arguments that have barely begun to be heard, but the filing ensures that the refund question, which the Supreme Court left unanswered, will now be answered somewhere, and that the answer will matter to every business that paid the challenged duties.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from Tax Notes, Paul, Weiss and Skadden.