CBP opens CAPE Phase 3 and proposes new rules for low-value shipments

If your company brought a claim over IEEPA tariffs and holds a court order to reliquidate its entries, you can now file for those refunds. If you import anything valued at $2,500 or less, the entry rules may soon get stricter. CBP made both moves in the first week of October.

CAPE Phase 3: refunds for finally liquidated entries

CBP opened Phase 3 of CAPE (the ACE Portal tool for IEEPA tariff refunds) on October 6. Earlier phases covered unliquidated and recently liquidated entries. Phase 3 is the first route for finally liquidated entries, and eligibility is narrow:

• Court order: the entry must fall under a Court of International Trade reliquidation order.
• Plaintiff status: the filer must be a plaintiff that submitted a valid importer of record number to CBP by July 30. CBP says later submitters will receive separate instructions.

There is one trap to avoid: under 19 U.S.C. 1514(d), reliquidation reopens only the issues it covered, so a follow-on protest cannot add new classification or valuation claims. CAPE also will not accept entries with open protests, so review everything a protest covers before withdrawing it. Whether importers who were not plaintiffs can recover duties on finally liquidated entries is still being litigated.

Proposed rule: shipments valued at $2,500 or less

A proposed rule published October 8 would change how these shipments enter the U.S. By CBP's own estimate, about 2.3 million informal entries came in without a customs bond between August 2025 and July 2026. As proposed:

• Earlier filing: informal entries (Entry Type 11) would be filed electronically on or before importation, instead of within 15 days after arrival.
• A new mail entry: Entry Type 13 for postal shipments, requiring the shipper's name and address and the foreign postal tracking number.
• A bond for every filer: Type 11 and Type 13 filers would need a basic importation bond, and a default would trigger liquidated damages of the shipment's value or $1,000, whichever is higher, and three times the value for alcoholic beverages and restricted goods.
• A licensed broker as importer of record when the consignee is a postal operator, freight forwarder, or carrier rather than the owner.
• A 15-day abandonment clock for postal shipments without a filed entry.
• One loosening: goods subject to Section 232 or 301 duties could use informal entry up to $2,500, instead of today's $250 cap.

Proposed rules often change before they are final, and CBP itself says it cannot certify that this one avoids a significant impact on small businesses. Realistic outcomes include adoption largely as written (likely timed to the statutory end of de minimis on July 1, 2027), a phased or narrowed version, or a delay. No effective date has been proposed. This is the best information available as of publication.

What to do now

1. If you are a CAPE plaintiff, audit eligible entries and check protest scope before filing.
2. Measure how much of your inbound volume moves under $2,500, and whether your current bond would cover informal entries.
3. If the proposal would hurt your business, file a comment at regulations.gov (docket USCBP-2026-0298) by December 7.

Aldenbridge Customs Brokerage can check CAPE eligibility entry by entry, size your low-value exposure, or help shape a comment: customsentries@aldenbridge.com.

Sources: GHY on CAPE progress · Federal Register, Low-Value Shipments (91 FR 64532) · Regulations.gov docket USCBP-2026-0298