Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTThomas KentSun, August 9, 2026 at 1:15 PM GMT+2 7 min readAndrew Harnik/ Getty ImagesMoneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below.American businesses are getting billions of dollars back from President Donald Trump's tariffs. But if you paid higher prices because of them, don't expect a refund check except under very specific circumstances.The Trump administration had completed roughly $100 billion in tariff refunds by the end of July, according to a recent filing (1) in the U.S. Court of International Trade. That's more than half of the roughly $166 billion (2) collected under tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down earlier this year.Must ReadJeff Bezos backs a platform that lets anyone invest in rental homes for as little as $100 — 6 ways to build wealth like a landlord without actually being oneJPMorgan still sees gold hitting $5,000/oz by Q4 — and savvy investors are protecting their wealth with a tax-advantaged Gold IRA. Learn more with a free guide from Priority GoldThe tax breaks in Trump's 'big beautiful bill' expire after 2028 — and experts say most people won't act in time. What to do before the window closesThe money is going to the businesses that legally paid the tariffs when importing goods. The problem is that they weren't necessarily the ones who ultimately absorbed the cost.Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that nearly 90% of the economic burden (3) of Trump's 2025 tariffs fell on U.S. firms and consumers.And while some companies have promised to pass their refunds along through lower prices, there's no guarantee the money will find its way back into shoppers' wallets.Companies get refunds and you pay the priceWhen a product enters the U.S., the importer pays the tariff. It can then absorb that expense, convince its foreign supplier to lower its price or pass some of the cost along to customers.And pass the buck they did. The Tax Foundation (4) estimates Trump's tariffs amounted to an average tax increase of about $1,000 per U.S. household in 2025.Meanwhile, Amazon disclosed a roughly $600 million payment, while Apple received about $2.2 billion, according to ABC News (5).Amazon has said it will refund customers in the limited cases where it determined tariffs were passed directly to them, while Walmart and Costco have indicated their refunds could help fund lower prices. Meaning, any refunds would be coming at the discretion of some of corporate America's biggest names, not the government.But there's no nationwide mechanism for returning the costs consumers already absorbed, and prices don't automatically fall just because an importer's tariff is eventually refunded. Meanwhile, consumer prices remained 3.5% higher in June (6) than a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info