By Tom Whitfield

CBP has paid out nearly $135 billion in refunds on the struck-down IEEPA tariffs as of Sept. 11 — and roughly 75% of the companies collecting that cash are keeping at least some of it for themselves, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta survey of more than 1,100 C-suite executives at U.S. firms.

Another 52.5% are channeling the returned funds into research, development and capital projects. Respondents could list multiple uses, and a smaller share named customer rebates, price cuts or shareholder payouts.

The Atlanta Fed ran the survey in August, seven months after the Supreme Court invalidated the IEEPA tariffs in February. That ruling raised a first wave of questions — when and how importers would actually see refunds. After Customs and Border Protection launched a dedicated refund portal in the spring, the question shifted. What does this change for shippers and their customers? The answer, mostly: the money stays put.

Where is the money actually going?

The findings track with what the Atlanta Fed expected: most firms would keep the disbursements in-house. The corporate record backs that up.

Nintendo, which recouped some $300 million in tariff refunds, stated flatly that customers are not entitled to any of the benefit — though it later ran a "customer appreciation sale" it credited, in part, to the returns. Lowe's and The Home Depot are using refunds to offset rising supply chain costs rather than cutting prices.

But the Atlanta Fed flagged the counter-trend as statistically meaningful.

"Although these are surprising uses of cash windfalls relative to the predictions of standard models, these results also suggest that a nontrivial portion of tariff refunds directly benefit customers and employees," the institution wrote.

The pass-through camp has names on it:

• Walmart and BJ's Wholesale Club have explicitly tied refunds to lower prices
• Burlington is using the funds to "deliver sharper values" to shoppers
• Williams-Sonoma is sharing refunds with employees, including staff who handled the IEEPA claims themselves

Who is running the refund process?

Nearly 70% of firms lean on internal staff to manage IEEPA refund claims, per the survey. About 22% hired a third party. A slim slice did something more drastic: sold their refund rights outright for immediate cash.

American Eagle Outfitters and The Children's Place both offloaded a portion of their expected returns to shore up cash reserves — a discount-for-certainty trade that reads as a bet on tighter liquidity rather than faith in CBP's processing speed.

What comes next?

The $135 billion already paid won't be the final figure. CBP is set to launch new capabilities next month to process finally liquidated entries, extending the refund pipeline into a new class of claims and keeping the cash question live for importers through Q4.