A Supreme Court ruling sent about $130 billion of tariff money back out of the Treasury in fiscal 2026. After those refunds, customs duties netted $172 billion for the year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
CBO reports the figures in its Monthly Budget Review for September, released October 8. It says “about $130 billion was issued in refunds for tariffs collected under IEEPA,” the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, following a February 2026 decision of the Supreme Court. Net customs receipts of $172 billion compare with $195 billion in fiscal 2025, a drop of $22 billion, or 11 percent.
The refunds went to the businesses that paid the duties at the border, not to shoppers, so the immediate effect of the $130 billion lands on importers’ balance sheets and on the federal ledger rather than on household bank accounts. What the numbers settle for everyone else is how much tariff revenue the government can count on: the $172 billion is what remained after the refunds, and it is the figure that sits inside the deficit.
The $172 billion net customs figure is an estimate that CBO re-runs in every monthly budget review, so each new report can move it.
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What the Court decided
The ruling at the center of the refunds came in February 2026. A client alert that the law firm A&O Shearman published on February 20 summarized it as holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. That left the duties collected under the statute without a legal basis and opened the question of who would be repaid and how.
CBO’s budget review puts a dollar figure on the answer for the fiscal year. About $130 billion was issued by September 30. The agency does not say whether more is still owed, and its report does not publish gross collections, so the size of the full pool of IEEPA duties cannot be read from it.
The ledger behind $172 billion
Customs duties are counted net of refunds, and that makes the two numbers move together. Adding the $130 billion of IEEPA refunds back to the $172 billion net total would put gross collections at roughly $300 billion or more. That is arithmetic, not a CBO figure, because the agency does not publish a gross number and other refunds are also netted out.
The comparison year is less dramatic. Net customs receipts in fiscal 2025 were $195 billion. So even after a refund bill of about $130 billion, fiscal 2026 ended only $22 billion below the prior year, which implies that gross collections ran well above the prior year’s net total.
Where tariff money sits among federal receipts
Total receipts rose to $5,403 billion in fiscal 2026, up $169 billion, or 3 percent. Customs duties were one of the few large categories that went down. Individual income taxes rose $188 billion, or 7 percent, to $2,844 billion. Payroll taxes rose $67 billion, or 4 percent, to $1,815 billion. Corporate income taxes fell $70 billion, or 16 percent, to $382 billion, a decline CBO links to the 2025 reconciliation act, which lets corporations take larger deductions for certain investments.
At $172 billion, net customs duties were about 3 percent of all receipts, small beside the income and payroll taxes. They are also small beside the deficit of $1,993 billion, which was $218 billion wider than in fiscal 2025. The refunds alone were equal to roughly 7 percent of that deficit.
The scale gap shows in the year’s totals. The $188 billion gain in individual income taxes was more than eight times the $22 billion decline in net customs receipts, so the refund episode did not stop total receipts from growing. In September alone, receipts came to $558 billion, up $14 billion, or 3 percent, from September 2025.
Questions the refund cycle leaves open
CBO’s report treats the $130 billion as a fiscal 2026 event. The agency’s estimate covers fiscal 2026 only, and its table for the year carries the label preliminary. The timing of each payment determines which budget year records it.
For the federal books, the practical lesson is that tariff revenue is not a steady line. A year’s net total can fall by a large amount in the same period that gross duties are high, if a court order reverses part of them. The monthly review is where each new swing is counted first.
Following net tariff revenue month by month
The free primary source is CBO’s September budget review page. In the revenue table, the line for “Customs duties” shows the prior-year and current-year amounts, and the accompanying text explains the refund estimate. Reading that line each month shows whether the net figure is rising as normal collections build or falling because more refunds were issued.
Two things are worth comparing when the next report comes out: the monthly net customs figure against the same month a year earlier, and any new CBO language about IEEPA refunds. A small net figure in a month can mean low imports, or it can mean refunds issued. The text, not the table alone, tells which.
The reference point is CBO’s fiscal 2026 estimate itself: $172 billion in net customs duties, after about $130 billion in IEEPA refunds.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
