Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced that beginning Feb. 6, 2026, it will exclusively be issuing all refunds electronically via the CBP Automated Clearing House (ACH). 

This change is a result of the Electronic Refunds Interim Final Rule that was published in the Federal Register on January 2, 2026 - the details of which can be found here. 

In light of this change, CBP has taken several key steps to help ease into this change. The first are several key improvements to the ACH refund sign-up process, including: 

• Adding an automated ACH Refund Authorization tool in the Automated Commercial Environment Secure Data Portal (ACE Portal). 
• Automating the ACE Portal’s importer account application, which is necessary to access the new ACH Refund Authorization tool.

They have also published an ‘Electronic Refund Enrollment Reference Sheet’, which can be found here, along with several ‘readiness support calls’. 

The schedule and links for those calls can be found along with more information about this change on the CBP release here.