Amazon collected $600 million in tariff refunds last quarter, and some of that money is heading back to shoppers.
The refunds stem from a February 2026 Supreme Court ruling that struck down tariffs President Trump had imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977.
The decision required the government to repay duties already collected on imported goods. Companies including Apple, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, and General Motors all said they would seek the money.
Amazon, however, stayed quiet for months, something that drew significant scrutiny. The pressure intensified in April when Trump told CNBC that he would “remember” companies that did not pursue the reimbursement.
By May, that speculation manifested into consumers filing a class-action suit in federal court in Seattle, claiming they were owed money for tariff-inflated prices and arguing that Amazon was skipping the refunds to stay on Trump’s good side.
Amazon finally broke its silence on the company’s recent Q2 2026 earnings call, where finance chief Brian Olsavsky confirmed the tech giant’s stance: “We are participating in the tariff refund process and, as I mentioned earlier, we received approximately $600 million in Q2,” Olsavsky noted.
A fraught tightrope
There’s history behind all this friction that still colors the current reimbursement process. In April 2025, when Amazon reportedly planned to display tariff costs directly on product pages, Trump called Bezos personally to complain, per NBC News.
Given this, Amazon’s clarification regarding the $600 million refund carries much weight. CFO Olsavsky attributed the modest figure to two main factors: that the company had ordered and pre-positioned inventory ahead of the tariffs and also that it is not the importer of record for most of what it sells.
The responsibility falls mainly on third-party sellers, who account for more than 60% of goods on the marketplace according to Amazon. Many of them apparently raised prices because of the levies and have filed for reimbursement of their own.
Not every shopper will get their money back, however. “We’ve identified a limited set of circumstances where we can trace that we’ve passed specific import charges onto customers, and when we receive those refunds, we will proactively contact affected customers and automatically issue refunds to them,” Olsavsky explained. “Otherwise, like other large retailers, we’ll utilize refunds to continue to invest in low prices for customers,” the CFO added.
Sources: Business Wire, Amazon, SCOTUS, Marketplace Pulse, CNBC