CBP has begun returning IEEPA duties, and we’re now issuing IEEPA Tariff Credits to the customers who purchased coffees with tariffs applied. If you bought green coffee from us during the IEEPA tariff period, we’ll contact you as credits are issued.
For seven months in 2025, green coffee imported into the United States was subject to IEEPA tariffs. Like every importer, we paid those duties directly to U.S. Customs. They became part of our landed cost and were reflected in the prices our customers paid for coffee.
At the time, we had no expectation that those duties would ever be returned.
The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that the IEEPA tariff program was unauthorized. U.S. Customs and Border Protection then established a process for importers to recover duties paid under the program.
This was happening across the entire economy, not only coffee. Customs collected roughly $166 billion in duties under IEEPA, across more than 53 million import entries and over 330,000 importers. No system existed to return any of it, so CBP had to build one. A federal court ordered tariff refunds in early March 2026, then suspended its own order days later because the agency could not process a return that large.
As we shared in our March and April updates, we filed claims as soon as the process became available. We also preserved claims on entries approaching liquidation by filing protests where necessary.
CBP has now begun returning duties.
So far, that covers 927 coffee lots. Another 11 are currently in process, and we’ll file claims on an additional 77 lots when the next filing window opened June 29. A further 29 lots were imported by other parties rather than by Royal, and we’re recovering those duties through them. Counting those, we’re actively pursuing recovery on 1,044 coffee lots in total.
As CBP returns duties on individual lots, we’re issuing IEEPA Tariff Credits to the customers who purchased those coffees. Our customers bore those tariff costs through higher prices. Issuing IEEPA Tariff Credits is how we’re returning those costs to the customers who paid them.
Each IEEPA Tariff Credit identifies the coffee, lot number, invoice, weight, tariff rate per pound, and total credit amount. Credits may be applied to open invoices.
There was no legal requirement to issue these credits. After 48 years in business, the decision wasn’t a difficult one.
Green coffee purchases can be matched directly to individual lots and invoices. Drinks served in our tasting room required a different approach. The Crown will reduce the price of coffee menu items by $0.25 for approximately sixty days, reflecting the roughly $2,500 in IEEPA duties paid on the coffee it served during the affected period.
We’ve published The Crown’s methodology so customers can see how those temporary menu price reductions were calculated. We hope other businesses throughout the coffee supply chain find it useful.
If you purchased green coffee from us during the IEEPA tariff period, Cindy Rosas on our accounting team will contact you as IEEPA Tariff Credits are issued. If you have questions about your credit or how to apply it, our team is happy to help.
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