Tariff Exemptions or Duty Drawback Recover Up to 99% of Duties Paid

A tariff exemption is a government determination that a specific product or category is excluded from a tariff before duties are collected. Duty drawback, by contrast, is a refund of duties already paid — available when imported goods are re-exported, used in manufacturing finished goods that are exported, or destroyed. Drawback is a statutory U.S. government program governed by 19 U.S.C. § 1313, available to any qualifying importer regardless of political or regulatory exemption decisions.

Goods may qualify for duty drawback if they are re-exported in the same condition (unused merchandise drawback), incorporated into finished products that are subsequently exported (manufacturing drawback), returned to the foreign supplier as rejected or non-conforming (rejected merchandise drawback), or destroyed under CBP supervision. Section 301, IEEPA, and reciprocal tariff duties paid on these goods are eligible for refund through the drawback process.

U.S. law allows recovery of up to 99% of duties paid on eligible imported goods through the duty drawback program. The exact amount depends on which drawback type applies, how import and export records are matched, and the accounting method used. Zollback's proprietary optimization algorithms evaluate all possible matching combinations to find the maximum recoverable amount, recovering 15–20% more than manual methods used by legacy providers.

The traditional industry standard for duty drawback processing is 9 to 12 months, primarily due to manual data entry workflows and legacy desktop software. Zollback's automated platform processes claims in 10 to 15 working days from document ingestion to CBP submission. Actual CBP refund disbursement timing is determined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection after filing.

Yes. Section 301 tariffs on goods from China and IEEPA-based tariffs are eligible for duty drawback when the imported goods are subsequently re-exported, used in manufacturing for export, or destroyed. Many companies paying these tariffs are unaware they qualify for drawback refunds. Nationally, approximately 80% of eligible import duty refunds go unclaimed each year.

No. Zollback operates on a performance-based pricing model — there are no upfront fees. Zollback takes a percentage of the refund actually recovered, meaning you only pay when cash hits your account. This aligns Zollback's incentives directly with maximizing your refund recovery.