FedEx Charged Consumers Illegal Tariff Fees, Class Action Lawsuit Contends

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FedEx faces a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the shipping and logistics giant wrongfully charged consumers nationwide for tariff duties, taxes and fees that the United States Supreme Court has since declared unlawful.

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The 19-page tariffs lawsuit contends that FedEx, in response to sweeping tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, began to charge consumers for goods that would generally bear no import fee under a Column 1-General duty rate of “free,” even though no “lawful tariff authority” would have required such fees.

The case states that on February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that tariffs imposed under IEEPA were illegal, saying in a slip opinion that “IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”

When items are imported into the United States, FedEx uses its own brokerage service to act as the “importer of record” to pay any applicable import taxes and duties, the suit explains. Under the IEEPA, the case says, FedEx paid import tariffs to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), then passed those costs along to consumers, who were forced to reimburse the company for duties, taxes and fees before they received their goods.

Import taxes and fees are levied based on a chart provided by the United States International Trade Commission known as the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which the lawsuit says lists many consumer goods such as electronics, sporting goods, scientific and medical instruments, machinery, and certain apparel and footwear under Column-1 General duty rate of “free.”

Per the suit, this categorization was longstanding. First enacted in 1938 and later updated in 2026, the Column-1 General duty category states that imported items with a retail value of $800 or less are exempt from taxes under a de minimis, or of the least concern, exemption. The case states that on July 30, 2025, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14324, which suspended the de minimus exemption for all imported goods, “regardless of value, country of origin, or mode of transportation.”

However, the filing argues that the suspension of the de mimimis exemption was “effectively immaterial” to calculating import taxes and duties for Column 1-General duty products, as the applicable column rate was “already zero” and “suspension of the exemption did not create any lawful duty liability.”

The lawsuit further stresses that for Column 1-General products, IEEPA tariffs enacted by Trump were the “sole source” of any duty assessment, regardless of the item’s value or whether it was covered by the exemption.

“The causal chain is direct and unbroken,” the case stresses, alleging that FedEx charged consumers these unlawful import and duty fees entirely because of the “void” IEEPA tariffs.

The suit relays that the IEEPA tariffs triggered the requirements for a customs entry filing, which then led to FedEx’s assessment of brokerage and clearance fees that were passed along to consumers.

According to the complaint, the plaintiff purchased a pair of shoes from a store in Schutterwald, Germany, with a total customs value of $140 and chose to use FedEx International Economy shipping. Shortly thereafter, the consumer received an email from FedEx stating that he owed $36 in import charges and was required to pay before his package was released to him—import charges that were a direct result of the allegedly unlawful and overly broad IEEPA tariffs.

The lawsuit notes that FedEx filed a complaint with the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking a full refund of the illegal import duties and fees that the company paid the federal government under the IEEPA. However, FedEx’s complaint was “silent” as to whether it intends to return any potential refund to the consumers who bore the real financial burden, the case says.

The FedEx class action lawsuit seeks to cover all persons and entities in the United States who, from February 4, 2025 through February 24, 2026, paid to Federal Express Corporation or FedEx Logistics any of the following in connection with imported goods classified under the HTSUS subheadings carrying a Column 1-General duty rate of “free”: tariff charges assessed under the IEEPA, including duties imposed under Chapter 99 IEEPA subheadings; and/or brokerage, clearance or other ancillary fees charged in connection with customs entries filed to process such IEEPA tariffs.

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