Rivian has sued the US government to recover every dollar it paid under the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, arguing that the Supreme Court ruling that voided the duties does not by itself guarantee the money comes back.
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in the US Court of International Trade and first reported by TechCrunch, names the US government, Customs and Border Protection and CBP commissioner Rodney Scott as defendants.
CBP collected the duties on the administration’s behalf under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — the legal basis the Supreme Court struck down 6-3 on February 20 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump.
Crucially for this case, the justices left the handling of refunds to the lower courts — the exact gap Rivian‘s filing is built to close.
That ruling capped a chain of defeats for the tariffs.
Notably, the Court of International Trade itself found in May 2025 that IEEPA does not authorize them, and the Federal Circuit largely affirmed that conclusion in August, before the justices settled the question.
The “Liberation Day” package, unveiled in April 2025, imposed sweeping duties on imported goods and components, and automakers absorbed the cost on everything from battery cells to fasteners while the legal challenges worked through the courts.
Since the ruling, importers across industries have filed a growing wave of refund actions, because the decision invalidated the tariffs without creating an automatic mechanism to hand the money back.
What the Complaint Asks
Filed under court number 26-03340 by two Rivian entities as importers of record, the complaint requests four remedies.
Rivian demands a declaration that the tariffs were contrary to law, an order directing CBP to reliquidate the affected entries, a refund of the full amount with interest, and payment of costs and attorneys’ fees.
The core argument is procedural rather than constitutional, since the constitutional question is already settled.
Importers who paid the invalidated duties are not assured of recovering them on the strength of the ruling alone, the company’s lawyers wrote, which is why a separate action is necessary.
Beyond the principle, the complaint seeks certainty on the amount: Rivian wants a guarantee that it recovers not just something, but the proper sum of everything it paid.
Similar refund actions from importers have been arriving at the Court of International Trade, the specialized venue for customs disputes, since late last year.
CBP told TechCrunch that more than $121 billion in potential and certified refunds have been accepted for processing.
However, the Cato Institute wrote earlier this month that only about $71 billion had actually been paid out — a gap the think tank attributed to frictions built into the refund process that create obstacles for importers.
CBP declined to comment on the lawsuit specifically.
What the Money Means to Rivian
Chief financial officer Claire McDonough said in April that Rivian expected a refund in the tens of millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, founder and chief executive RJ Scaringe has told Reuters the duties initially added a couple of thousand dollars of cost per vehicle, an impact that fell to the low hundreds by late 2025 as sourcing adjusted.
For a company still losing money on every vehicle at the gross level — the automotive segment posted a $62 million gross loss in the first quarter — tens of millions are not rounding error.
The suit lands in a week when Rivian‘s cash discipline has been on open display.
This week the company mounted an end-of-July sales push with 0.99% financing and $1,000 discounts to clear 2026 stock, following successive rounds of inventory price cuts that reached $5,000 on flagship configurations.
Pricing moves have run in both directions this month — the company raised financing rates in early July before reversing course — while the entry-level Dual Standard trim was quietly discontinued in June, lifting the R1S starting price to $83,990.
Alongside, Rivian recently raised about $1.3 billion in a share sale to pad its balance sheet, as spending on autonomous-vehicle development pushes the profitability timeline out — potentially to 2028.
The R2, the mass-market SUV meant to carry Rivian toward profitability, is ramping now, with the company expecting 20,000 to 25,000 deliveries by year-end despite a temporary pause on some handovers over a paint-quality issue.
A Wave, Not a One-Off
Rivian joins a long line of importers suing for the same guarantee, in a refund process that has moved slower than the ruling that created it.
Tesla disclosed in the 10-Q it filed this week that it may be eligible for refunds of tariffs paid on imported goods following the February ruling.
Recoverability and timing remain uncertain enough, the filing notes, that no receivable will be booked until amounts are realized or realizable.
Tesla‘s disclosure carries a further wrinkle Rivian‘s does not: any refund it receives may itself be partly owed onward, as the filing flags contractual obligations to pass refunds through to certain energy-storage customers.
For Rivian, by contrast, a recovered refund would drop straight into a balance sheet the company has been actively defending.
That accounting caution is the corporate mirror of Rivian‘s legal argument — the ruling created a right in principle, and companies are now spending money to convert it into cash.
Shares of Rivian fell 3.8% to $15.84 in Friday trading, valuing the company near $23 billion, in a session that also brought unrelated insider-trading charges against two former Volkswagen engineers over the companies’ joint venture.
