Alina Selyuk

And they have been waiting for that answer for two months.

At first, it wasn't clear if the government would or even could do the refunds.

Then it seemed the businesses might have to sue the government individually to get that money back.

And just over a month ago, U.S.

Customs revealed in court that they were working on an online portal to file refund claims.

And this past week, it was kind of like, here it is.

The portal opens Monday.

I asked exactly that when I was talking to Jonathan Gold.

He is the customs expert at the National Retail Federation.

One small business owner I talked to who is a mom was saying she felt like she was applying for a competitive summer camp slot.

Like,

Will the fastest fingers get to be first in line?

People are getting multiple colleagues prepared to log in and file.

They're setting up AI tools to speed up applications.

I think it will be tens of thousands of people trying to file their tariff refund claims first thing Monday.

We did pose this question to Customs, you know, about the volume of claims that their tariff portal is prepared to handle on Monday.

A spokesperson just said the new tool was built to, quote, efficiently process refunds and also shared a new guidance page it's created for importers and brokers.

Of course, not all businesses will be ready immediately.

There's a fair amount of

bureaucratic prep work that has to be done to qualify for a refund claim.