What the V.O.S. Selections ruling means for your 2024–2025 duties

If you're a U.S. importer who paid six-figure tariff bills in 2024 or 2025, you've probably seen the headlines about a refund window opening. Most of the reporting traces back to a single Court of International Trade decision: V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump. This post walks through what that ruling actually held, what it didn't touch, and how to read your own situation against it.

What the court actually held

The Court of International Trade ("CIT") is the specialized federal court that hears disputes about U.S. customs duties and trade remedies. It's where you go — before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit — to challenge how Customs and Border Protection ("CBP") has assessed duties on an entry.

The V.O.S. Selections plaintiffs — a group of small importers led by a wine distributor — challenged tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act ("IEEPA"). Their argument was narrow and specific: IEEPA is a national-security statute that gives the President broad authority to regulate international transactions during declared emergencies, but it does not grant authority to impose across-the-board tariffs as a revenue-raising or trade-policy tool.

The CIT agreed. In summary, the court held that:

• IEEPA contemplates targeted economic measures tied to the declared emergency, not ad valorem duties imposed on broad categories of imports.
• The specific tariffs at issue exceeded the statutory authority Congress delegated in IEEPA.
• Duties collected under that authority were therefore assessed without a valid statutory basis.

The court did not strike down all tariffs, all trade remedies, or even all invocations of IEEPA. It ruled on the specific tariffs in the case before it, under the specific authority cited, during the specific period the tariffs were in effect.

Why this matters for importers

Under U.S. customs law, when duties are assessed without proper statutory authority, the party that paid them has a legal mechanism to recover the money: the customs protest. Filed with CBP under 19 U.S.C. § 1514, a protest is a formal request to correct an entry and refund excess duties.

V.O.S. Selections didn't create the protest mechanism — that's been on the books for decades. What it did was validate the legal theory that IEEPA tariffs were assessed improperly, which gives protests filed on that theory a much stronger footing.

The opportunity, simplified:

1. You paid IEEPA tariffs during the covered period. Check your CBP Form 7501 entry summaries — the duty column identifies the authority cited.
2. You were the importer of record. Protests can only be filed by the party on the entry with CBP.
3. Your protest deadline hasn't run. In general, a protest must be filed within 180 days of liquidation (the final CBP determination of duties owed, not the date of entry).
4. A qualified customs attorney files on your behalf. The legal theory is narrow, the filings are technical, and CBP will not treat pro se protests with the same seriousness.

What the ruling does not cover

Several flavors of tariffs that importers often conflate with IEEPA tariffs are not covered by this ruling:

Section 301 tariffs

The China tariffs originally imposed in 2018 under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 are assessed under different authority and have survived multiple legal challenges. Importers who paid Section 301 duties on Chinese-origin goods may have recovery paths in specific circumstances (such as exclusion requests or HTSUS misclassification claims), but those are separate legal theories.

Section 232 tariffs

Steel and aluminum tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 are also assessed under different authority and remain in effect.

Ordinary MFN duties

The standard duty rates in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States ("HTSUS") that apply under Most Favored Nation treatment are not affected. Those are the baseline duties you'd pay on most imports even if no IEEPA, 232, or 301 measures existed.

The appeals situation

The government has appealed V.O.S. Selections to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and parts of the ruling may be stayed, modified, or reversed on appeal. Several related cases — including challenges brought by other importers — are also moving through the courts on adjacent theories.

Practically, this means three things for an importer evaluating whether to file:

1. Filing preserves your position. Protest deadlines are unforgiving — if you wait for final resolution and your 180-day window closes, you lose the claim regardless of how the appeal comes out.
2. Refund timing is tied to litigation pace. Even if your protest is ultimately successful, CBP typically does not issue refunds until the underlying legal questions are resolved on appeal. Expect 12–24 months from filing to cash, sometimes longer.
3. The scope of recovery may narrow. The appellate court could limit the ruling to specific tariff codes, specific country-of-origin categories, or specific time periods. Your attorney will calibrate the scope of your filing to the best available theory at the time of filing.

How to tell if this applies to your business

In practical terms, you're likely a candidate if:

• You imported goods into the U.S. during 2024 or 2025.
• Your company — not a distributor, 3PL, or Amazon-as-importer-of-record — was the party named on the customs entry.
• Your CBP Form 7501 entry summaries show IEEPA duties assessed (frequently labeled by country-of-origin category and a statutory citation in the duty column).
• Combined duties across those entries approach or exceed $100,000 — the threshold our partner attorneys generally require to take on a case economically.

If you meet those criteria, the next step is routine: your customs broker can typically produce the 7501 summaries within a few business days, an attorney reviews the entries, and a filing decision is made. The 3-minute eligibility check on our home page collects the inputs that determine whether this is worth pursuing.

Where to read the source material

If you want to go deeper, the primary sources are all public:

• The CIT docket and opinion in V.O.S. Selections, Inc. v. Trump (available on CourtListener and PACER).
• 19 U.S.C. § 1514 — the statutory basis for customs protests.
• 19 C.F.R. Part 174 — CBP's protest regulations.
• CBP's Informed Compliance Publications on protest procedure.

Mainstream press coverage in Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, Law360, and JD Supra offers useful context on the broader legal landscape, though the legal analysis in those outlets varies widely. For the legal mechanics, the source documents are more reliable than the coverage.

Disclaimer. This post is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Duty Recovery Partners LLC is a marketing services firm and is not a law firm. Legal analysis and filings are performed by independently licensed customs and international trade attorneys. Attorney advertising; prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.