Sarah Wells

On Monday morning, Sarah Wells woke up bright and early.

The tariff refund portal was set to open at 8 a.m.

Got on at 7.50 in the hopes that maybe I could be first in line.

And I would say under two or three minutes, I had an accepted, no error approved refund submission.

Wells owns Sarah Wells Bags, which makes products for new moms.

She was surprised everything went so smoothly, especially after how hard it was to do the first step, setting up a refund account.

It's cumbersome.

It's technologically kind of glitchy.

There's a lot of terminology and acronyms that I had no idea.

Wells hopes to get about $20,000 back from the government, including interest, in 60 to 90 days.

I don't think it's going to sit in my account very long.

She needs more inventory, and there are still other tariffs to pay.

Ashley Akers is a partner at Holland & Knight, whose clients range from small companies applying for thousands of dollars in refunds to large corporations owed millions.

She says for the majority of businesses, refund applications have been drama-free, but a lot is still up in the air.

Questions like, when can I collect the rest of the refund I'm owed?

Phase one of the tariff refund process covers about 60 percent of what's owed.

It means most companies will have to go through this all over again.

And U.S.

Customs and Border Protection hasn't given a timeline for phase two.

Anne Robinson owns a specialty grocery in Greensboro, North Carolina, called Scottish Gourmet USA.