Will Flooring Prices Drop After Tariff Refunds? Not Broadly

Probably not across the board. The tariff refunds being paid in 2026 go to importers of record, meaning flooring manufacturers, distributors and big-box retailers, not to shoppers, and nothing in the refund process requires them to cut prices. Mohawk Industries booked roughly $0.63 per share of tariff refunds in its second quarter and said in the same release that additional price increases may be required this year. Expect selected promotions, supplier credits and increases that never arrive rather than a general drop. No supplier or study has published a flooring-wide percentage decrease or a retail timetable.

The refunds exist because the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) on February 20, 2026, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) opened its refund portal on April 20, 2026. Both cover IEEPA duties only. Duties imposed under other authorities, such as Section 301 duties on Chinese goods or antidumping orders, are not part of this process, so any share of a plank’s cost that came from a different duty is not being refunded.

Enter your purchase or quote date, square footage and price per square foot; the window check and estimate update as you type.

The dollar figure in the checker is an illustration, not a refund owed to you. It is square feet times price per square foot times the import-cost share times the tariff rate, and it is an upper bound because it assumes every cent of the duty was passed through to your invoice. The import share and tariff rate are your assumptions. Ask the dealer for the country of origin and any tariff line on the invoice to tighten them. The date window is the one named in the McCoy v. Lowe’s complaint covered in the last section.

Refund Money Goes to the Importer of Record, Not the Shopper

The money moves along this path, and it can stop at any link:

CBP → importer of record → manufacturer or distributor → flooring dealer → homeowner

CBP built the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system, or CAPE, inside its Automated Commercial Environment to process valid IEEPA duty-refund requests. Only the importer of record for the listed entries, or the authorized customs broker that filed those entries for the importer, may submit a CAPE declaration. A homeowner who bought flooring cannot file a customs claim. CBP’s duty-refund guidance explains CAPE and who may file, and its IEEPA FAQ gives the background on the refund framework.

Every step after the importer is a separate pricing, accounting, contractual or customer-service decision, and the terms people use for those steps are not interchangeable.

Term	What Actually Happens
Customs duty refund	CBP returns eligible duties to the importer or its designated recipient
Supplier credit	The importer or manufacturer gives a distributor or dealer a payment, invoice adjustment or future credit
Retail price rollback	The dealer lowers the selling price of the affected flooring
Customer rebate	A business offers money back under stated promotional terms
Past-purchase reimbursement	A customer receives money tied to an earlier transaction

A customs refund does not automatically create a customer rebate, and a supplier credit does not necessarily change a quote a homeowner already accepted.

A tariff fee listed as its own line is easier to trace than an increase buried in the material price. It supports a request for clarification or reconciliation, but it does not by itself prove a legal right to repayment. Contract language, pricing records, what the seller represented, the status of the transaction, applicable law and the recipient’s own policy can all matter. A law-firm analysis written for downstream businesses makes the same point: not every buyer will have a recoverable claim, and the outcome turns on documentation and the commercial arrangement. Jones Walker covers downstream claims and tariff-refund-sharing terms.

The 60-to-90-Day CBP Estimate Is Not a Sale Date

CBP says importers and authorized brokers should generally anticipate valid refunds within 60 to 90 days after a CAPE declaration is accepted. Additional review, entry status, liquidation or reliquidation, reconciliation, and offsets for qualifying debts can delay payment.

That clock stops when the importer is paid. After that, the importer might send cash to a downstream business, credit future invoices, adjust wholesale prices on later shipments, or keep the benefit. The distributor and the dealer then each make their own call.

The CBP timetable bears on your purchase only if five things are known: that your exact SKU was covered by the refunded duty, who the importer of record was, that the customs entry qualified, that the importer has actually been paid, and that the supplier has a written policy for passing the money along or reconciling it. In my experience a showroom rarely knows the first two without calling the distributor. Without those answers, the customs estimate says little about when, or whether, your quote changes.

Mohawk Booked Refunds and Raised Prices in the Same Quarter

Mohawk is the clearest flooring example so far, and a limited one. In results released July 30, 2026, the company attributed approximately $0.63 per share of its second-quarter results to tariff refunds that had not been included in guidance. Its third-quarter adjusted earnings guidance included approximately $0.12 per share from refunds already received. Those are corporate earnings effects, not money paid to flooring customers.

The release did not announce a matching cut in wholesale or retail flooring prices. Management reported implementing price increases across many products and geographies and said additional increases might be required during the year. That last statement is a forward-looking possibility, not confirmation that more increases will happen. Mohawk’s second-quarter release carries both the refund figures and the pricing comments.

What this shows is narrow: tariff refunds and flat or rising flooring prices can coexist. A refund can reverse costs a manufacturer previously absorbed while other expenses keep pushing on price. It does not tell you what every brand, dealer, material category or individual quote will do.

A Refund Does Not Have to Reverse the Shelf Price

A refund reverses one eligible customs cost. It does not reverse every cost of making, shipping, selling and installing a floor.

If a company absorbed some or all of the original tariff instead of passing it through, the refund restores its margin. If it raised prices by less than the tariff cost, it may use the refund to skip a later increase. Businesses can also apply the money to freight, warehousing, financing, commodities or other expenses instead of lowering posted prices.

The research on the way up supports caution about the way down. A peer-reviewed study of the 2018–2020 tariff period found that affected duties passed strongly into prices paid by U.S. importers, while retail-price effects at the two large retailers studied were much smaller and varied by product. The authors read that pattern as retailers absorbing substantial costs through their margins. The study examined tariff imposition, not later refunds, and it was not flooring-specific, but it shows why a retail price need not reverse symmetrically. The published pass-through study compares border and store-level effects.

Companies outside flooring have used tariff refunds for selected price reductions, promotions, avoided increases and cost absorption. Those are possible responses, not a forecast of what your supplier will do.

Most Lines on an Installed Quote Never Carried the Duty

When I write a quote, the plank is one line among many. A duty refund generally does not directly reduce removal and disposal of the existing floor, subfloor repair or leveling, moisture testing and correction, underlayment or vapor-control materials, adhesive and installation supplies, transitions, baseboards, trim and stair parts, delivery and handling, installer labor, or sales tax and permit-related charges where they apply.

If the material price falls modestly but the room needs extensive removal and subfloor prep, the installed total may barely move. Compare the material subtotal and project total separately.

Exposure also differs by product. Hardwood, engineered wood, laminate, vinyl, tile and carpet did not all carry the same duties from the same countries. The useful question is whether the product in your quote was affected, not whether “flooring” received refunds.

Buy Now, Ask for Repricing, or Wait

Situation	Best Action	What to Verify
Urgent repair, fixed install date, scarce product, or no evidence tied to your SKU	Buy on the current schedule	Stock, quote expiration, deposit terms, installation scope, price protection
Quote lists a tariff surcharge, dealer confirms the SKU was affected, or the order is not final	Request repricing	Whether a supplier refund will produce a lower material price, credit, rebate or promotion
Flexible project and the dealer or supplier gives a credible written review date	Wait until that date	Exact SKU, review date, expected adjustment, inventory availability, quote validity

Do not postpone an urgent repair because a refund-driven sale might appear. Buying now does not mean giving up on savings either. Get more than one itemized quote and ask whether the dealer will honor a lower supplier price before delivery or installation. If the product is hard to source or the installer’s calendar matters, available material and a booked date can be worth more than a speculative discount.

A repricing request is strongest when the tariff cost is visible on paper or the dealer can connect the exact product to an affected supplier. Make it before the order is final. A signed estimate or paid deposit does not automatically have to be adjusted because an upstream supplier later receives a refund; contract terms, price-protection language, seller representations, applicable law and the status of the transaction all affect the answer.

Waiting makes sense for an optional, cosmetic replacement when the seller offers something more concrete than “prices may come down”: a written review date, a planned promotion, an expected supplier credit, or a policy covering orders placed before an adjustment.

A later quote can still come in higher if refund savings are offset by freight, sourcing changes, material costs, inventory or operating expenses. Compare the same SKU, quantity, waste allowance and installation scope, not a sale percentage on a different product or a thinner installation package.

What to Get in Writing on the Quote

An itemized quote is the only way to see a real change later. Ask the dealer or installer to break it out like this.

Quote Section	Lines to See
Product	Manufacturer, collection, color, construction, SKU, country of origin if available
Quantity	Required square footage and waste allowance
Material price	Unit price, subtotal, any separate tariff surcharge or fee
Freight	Freight, delivery and handling
Sundries	Underlayment, moisture-control products, adhesive, transitions, reducers, stair parts, trim, baseboards
Labor and prep	Existing-floor removal and disposal, subfloor work, installation labor
Terms	Tax, quote expiration, deposit and cancellation terms, price-protection or repricing terms

Subfloor preparation, repair, or leveling deserves its own line, because no duty refund touches it and it is easy to lose inside a lump-sum labor number.

Then put one direct question in writing:

Was this exact SKU subject to the refunded tariff, and will any supplier refund result in a lower material price, account credit, or promotion on my order?

Keep the original estimate, invoice, tariff notice, payment record, product details and the seller’s written answer. If the price changes later, compare the same quantity and scope line by line. Otherwise a lower material price can disappear into a changed waste allowance, prep charge, accessory list or labor figure.

Installers, dealers and commercial buyers should ask suppliers for a written reconciliation policy that states which products and invoices qualify, how credits are calculated, and whether adjustments apply to open or completed orders. Future agreements can include explicit tariff-refund-sharing terms. A visible surcharge improves the paper trail, but it still does not establish entitlement to repayment.

The Class Actions Have Not Created a Right to a Refund

Consumer lawsuits allege that some businesses passed tariff costs to customers and then kept the government refunds. Holland & Knight counted more than 80 such consumer class actions by June 18, 2026. These are disputed allegations, not rulings that retailers must reimburse customers.

The federal docket for McCoy v. Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (N.D. Ohio, 5:26-cv-02156) shows a complaint and jury demand filed on September 3, 2026. The complaint alleges that Lowe’s kept about $80 million in tariff refunds after passing tariff costs on to shoppers, and it names purchases from February 1, 2025 through February 24, 2026. The filing establishes that a case began. It does not establish that the claims are true, that a class was certified, that Lowe’s is liable, or that any covered purchases involved flooring. The Lowe’s docket lists the initial complaint.

Plaintiffs in these cases rely on tariff-related price increases and on separately stated surcharges. They face questions of standing, causation, ripeness, arbitration provisions, class-action waivers and the voluntary-payment doctrine, all of which are decided case by case. Holland & Knight analyzes the claims and the hurdles.

What the suits could change is limited to their own parties. A settlement or judgment would typically pay class members as that case defines them, which is the reason to keep receipts and itemized invoices from the window. It would not reset shelf prices, and a case against one retailer does not bind your flooring dealer. What they cannot do is give a flooring buyer a claim with CBP or a general right to a lower price today.

Until a court says otherwise, price the floor on what you can verify: the evidence tied to your SKU, the condition and urgency of the floor, material availability, and the total installed cost.