Americans' Top Retailers Are Getting Billions In Tariff Refunds—Including Walmart, Target—But Many Consumers Still Aren't

U.S. retailers reported receiving more than $5 billion in federal tariff refunds in earnings reports released this week alone, as the Trump administration undoes its signature tariff policy and pays back the money it took in—but despite studies showing that consumers bore the brunt of the initial tariff costs, companies are still largely keeping the windfalls for themselves.

The Trump administration is in the process of refunding billions in tariff revenue after the Supreme Court struck its most sweeping tariff policy down, reporting in an August court filing that it has so far refunded $100 billion of the approximately $166 billion it’s set to give back in total. That’s resulted in some of the country’s biggest companies and importers receiving millions in tariff refunds in recent months, with companies including Apple, Nike, GM and more reporting nine-figure refunds last quarter that have boosted their bottom lines.

In earnings this week, retailers that reported giant tariff refund checks included Target ($994 million), Home Depot ($730 million), TJ Maxx owner TJX ($331 million), Lowe’s ($80 million) and Ross ($253 million), with Walmart reporting the biggest refund at $2.9 billion. Those refunds, totaling $5.3 billion, come after Amazon reported $600 million in tariff refunds in July, along with some smaller retailers like Ace Hardware , which got $11.8 million back this quarter.

In earnings calls with investors, retail executives have largely suggested they intend to invest their tariff refund revenue back into their companies, rather than passing it on to shoppers who paid higher prices when tariffs went up, though some have committed to lowering prices.

Though consumers have filed a number of class-action lawsuits against companies receiving tariff refunds, none have finished playing out in court yet, and Americans otherwise have little recourse to recover tariff funds if companies don’t pass on refunds voluntarily.

A number of major retailers still have to release their earnings for the past quarter, including Macy’s, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Kohl’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Discount retailers like Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Five Below have so far excluded tariff refunds from their earnings in past quarters as the refund process remains ongoing, making it difficult to tell how much they’ve taken in. Costco, which is facing a class-action lawsuit from consumers over tariff refunds, said in its most recent May earnings call that it was only starting to submit requests for tariff refunds, so it remains to be seen how much the big box giant receives.

Walmart was one of the few retailers this week to commit to using its massive refund check to lower prices for consumers, with CEO John W. Furner saying on an earnings call, “Our intent was to deploy much of that back into price, and that's what we're doing.” Amazon has also previously said it would pass a portion of its tariff refunds directly back to consumers, in cases where customers paid import fees, and would otherwise use the money to reduce prices.

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said in a May earnings call that the company isn’t as impacted by tariff refunds, as it only directly imports around 2% to 3% of its products, but Best Buy’s "goal is that any recovery of duties we have will be used to deliver value back to our customers.” While it’s still unclear how much tariff refund money Costco will receive in total, leadership has previously suggested...