Major automakers are reporting stronger quarterly profits after they booked potential refunds from tariffs that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ford Motor said on Tuesday that it earned $2.5 billion in the first quarter, up from $500 million a year earlier, on revenue of $43.3 billion, a 6 percent increase from the same period last year. The result reflects the $1.3 billion in tariff reimbursements the company expects to receive.
According to Ford CFO Sherry House, the refunds are tied to import duties the company paid between March 2025 and February 2026 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). In February, the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump exceeded the IEEPA’s authority when he imposed tariffs aimed at rebalancing the United States’ trade relations with the rest of the world.
The Detroit-based automaker raised its full-year earnings outlook by $500 million, although the new guidance does not include the anticipated IEEPA refund.
“We don’t have certainty as to when that is going to come in,” House told investors in an earnings call. “So we did not put that in the guidance at this time.”
Ford’s crosstown rival, General Motors, also said on Tuesday it expects to receive $500 million in tariff refunds. The company has not yet received the money, but it still put it on the books for the first quarter.
GM reported first-quarter net income of $2.63 billion, down 5.7 percent from a year earlier. Despite that, the company raised its 2026 adjusted earnings guidance to between $13.5 billion and $15.5 billion, an increase of $500 million from its previous outlook, to reflect the expected tariff rebate.
Rising material and logistics costs tied to the Iran War, however, prevented GM from raising its outlook further. The automaker increased its projected commodity and freight inflation costs to between $1.5 billion and $2 billion this year, effectively canceling out the benefit of the tariff reimbursement.
“The war in Iran has raised our costs and its duration remains uncertain,” GM CEO Mary Barra said during the company’s April 28 earnings call.
“We are working to offset these cost pressures by reducing spending in other areas, and by continuing to find efficiencies across the business.”
Stellantis, the multinational automaker that owns Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler brands, booked a positive impact of about 400 million euros, or roughly $469 million, from expected tariff refunds. That amount exceeded the 263 million euros ($308 million) in net income the company recorded in North America, meaning the region would have posted a loss without the expected refunds.
By comparison, Stellantis’s North American business recorded a 542 million euro net loss in the first quarter of 2025.
For now, businesses can submit claims only for tariffs that were estimated and still subject to amendment, as well as for duties that were recently finalized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.
The agency said in a court filing that, as of April 26, more than 11 million entries had successfully passed file-level validations, while about 2.1 million entries—roughly 19 percent—were rejected after failing entry-specific validations.
Meanwhile, 1,740,000 of those entries that passed the file validation stage have been liquidated and are being refunded. CBP has said businesses will receive tariff refunds for eligible claims within 60 to 90 days after approval.
During an April 21 interview with CNBC, Trump was asked about reports that Amazon and Apple had delayed seeking refunds because of concerns that doing so could offend him.
“It’s brilliant if they don’t do that,” Trump said. “If they don’t do that, I will remember them.”
