Apple got an estimated $2.2 billion tariff refund last quarter. Amazon got $600 million. Nike got $300 million. But American consumers who paid higher prices as President Donald Trump’s tariffs filtered through the economy are getting almost nothing back.
Those corporate payouts may be just the beginning as the government continues processing refund claims after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s most sweeping levies earlier this year.
In total, the government is on the hook to refund hundreds of thousands of importers a total of around $166 billion. A little more than half of that has already been paid out, according to a Customs and Border Protection court filing.
The levies cost households an estimated $1,000 on average last year, according to the Tax Foundation. Before the Supreme Court weighed in, the Trump administration had floated the idea of $2,000 tariff rebate checks to redistribute some of the revenue the government had collected. Those, however, never materialized.
The tariff refund system is structured so that only the parties who directly paid the tariffs — or the customs brokers acting on their behalf — can file for a refund. That means that if you bought, for example, a pair of Nike sneakers that became more expensive as the company passed along some of its increased tariff costs, you have no legal way to get that money back.
