If you import goods and later export, destroy, or manufacture with them, U.S. Customs may owe you back almost every dollar of duty — for the last five years. Aduaria finds it and files it, and is paid only when your refund lands.
Rather read first? The 9-minute guide. Rather just ask? hello@aduaria.com.
No email, no call. Enter four numbers and see the working — what's recoverable, what isn't, and how much rolls off the five-year clock this year.
Runs in your browser. Nothing is sent until you choose to.Enter your annual duty (or import value) above and your recoverable figure appears here — line by line, nothing hidden. You don't need to know which tariff provisions apply.
Every line is classified and matched with the working shown, and a licensed customs broker reviews and signs before anything reaches CBP. Clean, evidenced claims — the kind that get paid, not questioned.
We automate the import-to-export matching that stalls manual claims for months, and file for Accelerated Payment — so your refund can arrive in weeks instead of waiting out liquidation.
No upfront fees and nothing to buy to find out — Aduaria takes a share of the duty it actually recovers. If nothing comes back, you pay nothing.
Duty drawback is a refund of the duties, taxes, and certain fees you paid when you imported merchandise — granted when that merchandise, or a commercially interchangeable substitute, is later exported or destroyed. It's one of the oldest provisions in U.S. trade law, and it exists for a simple reason: duties are meant to protect the domestic market, so goods that never actually stay and compete here shouldn't bear that cost.
Today it's governed by 19 U.S.C. § 1313 and the modernized regulations at 19 CFR Part 190, rewritten after the 2015 TFTEA law. The headline number: you can recover up to 99% of the duties paid. CBP keeps 1%.
The catch: drawback is a refund you have to ask for — CBP never sends it automatically. If you don't file, the money stays with the government, which is why most eligible importers leave it unclaimed.
Almost every claim falls into one of three buckets. If any of them describe your business, drawback is worth a serious look.
You import materials, use them to manufacture a different product, and export that product. You recover the duty paid on the imported inputs.
You import goods, then export or destroy them without using them in the U.S. Common for returns, overstock, and distribution hubs that import to re-export.
You import goods that turn out defective, off-spec, or shipped without your consent, and you export or destroy them. The duty comes back.
A powerful TFTEA feature is substitution: a commercially interchangeable good sharing the same 8-digit HTS classification can qualify in place of the exact imported item — so drawback works even when goods aren't serial-tracked.
Drawback is only as good as the data underneath it. Every match traces back to how accurately each line is classified — so we start there, then automate the entire claim end to end.
Our HTS classifier resolves each import and export line to its correct 8-digit code — the foundation substitution matching depends on, measured against a canonical benchmark set.
Your import entries are linked to the exports or destructions that unlock a refund — direct identification where records allow, commercial-interchangeability substitution where they don't.
We compute the duty, taxes, and eligible fees for each matched export across five years of entries — applying the statutory "lesser of" rule, with the reasoning shown line by line.
Claims are prepared as a type-47 entry in CBP's ACE system, with Accelerated Payment and Waiver of Prior Notice where you qualify. A licensed customs broker reviews and signs every claim.
Built on the verified data of every shipment Aduaria touches — so the system gets sharper with every entry, instead of inferring from public data. See the drawback module docs → Comparing duty drawback software? →
A claim must be filed within five years of the date of import. Miss it and the duty is gone — the single most expensive mistake, because companies often discover drawback a year too late.
Drawback is filed in CBP's ACE system as a type-47 entry. The old paper CBP Form 7551 is legacy — but the recordkeeping to trace import to export is exactly where manual efforts stall.
Accelerated Payment lets you receive the refund before CBP finishes liquidating the claim; Waiver of Prior Notice lets you export or destroy without notifying CBP in advance each time. Both require approval — we handle it.
Are you a customs broker? See how Aduaria works for brokers →
In February 2026 the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs, and on 20 April 2026 CBP opened CAPE to refund roughly $166 billion in collected duty. If those tariffs are in your entry history, CAPE — not drawback — is almost certainly the path.
File drawback on an entry that qualifies for CAPE and you can forfeit the larger refund — the full duty plus interest, with nothing exported. It's a one-way door, and sequence matters. Aduaria flags which of your entries are CAPE-eligible before anything is filed.
CAPE is still expanding. As of the review date below, reconciliation entries, protested entries, and AD/CVD are not yet CAPE-supported and may route through other channels.
Last reviewed 13 Aug 2026 · CAPE is an evolving CBP process — confirm current CBP guidance before acting. This is general information, not legal advice.
Duty drawback is a refund of the duties, taxes, and certain fees you paid when importing merchandise — granted when that merchandise, or a commercially interchangeable substitute, is later exported or destroyed. It's governed by 19 U.S.C. § 1313 and lets you recover up to 99% of the duties paid; CBP retains 1%.
Up to five years from the date of import, under TFTEA's uniform rule. Entries older than five years are no longer claimable, which is why acting early matters.
Up to 99% of the duties, taxes, and eligible fees paid on the imported merchandise. The exact amount depends on your entries, products, and the share you export or destroy — Aduaria gives you a defensible, line-by-line number rather than a rough guess.
With Accelerated Payment — which Aduaria applies for on your behalf — approved claims are typically paid by ACH within weeks of filing. Without it, refunds wait for CBP liquidation, which commonly takes a year or more. First-time claimants also need CBP to approve their privilege applications, which adds lead time up front.
Any business that imports goods into the U.S. and later exports or destroys them — or manufactures with them and exports the finished product. The importer of record can claim, and an exporter can claim with the importer's permission. Distributors that re-export, manufacturers with exported finished goods, and e-commerce sellers with cross-border returns are common qualifiers.
Nothing upfront. Aduaria is paid a share of the duty it actually recovers for you — if no refund comes back, you pay nothing. There are no setup fees and nothing to buy to find out what you're owed.
Not necessarily. Drawback rights can be assigned, and substitution rules let you claim against commercially interchangeable goods classified under the same 8-digit HTS code.
Aduaria scans your historical entries, classifies every line to the correct HTS code, matches imports to qualifying exports or destructions, calculates the recoverable duty, and files the claim as a type-47 entry in CBP's ACE system. A licensed customs broker reviews and signs every claim.
Probably not. The IEEPA tariffs struck down in February 2026 are refunded through CBP's CAPE process, which returns the full duty with interest and requires no export. CAPE and drawback are mutually exclusive on the same entry, so filing drawback can forfeit the larger refund. Aduaria flags which of your entries are CAPE-eligible before anything is filed.
Run the numbers yourself in under a minute — no email, no call, and nothing to pay unless duty actually comes back. See what's recoverable before it rolls off the five-year clock.