H.R. 6500 Clears Congress Without a New AGOA Refund Window
The version of H.R. 6500 that cleared Congress would extend AGOA through December 31, 2028 if enacted, but it omits the House bill's new 180-day refund process. Importers should verify the controlling text before changing broker instructions or reopening a 2025 lapse file.
Primary lensEntry posture review
Sub-topicProtest window
Evidence base8 records used
Use caseRefund posture
H.R. 6500 would extend the African Growth and Opportunity Act through 2028 if the president signs it. It would not create the new 180-day refund window that appeared in the version the House passed in January.
That difference matters now because the same bill number points to two legislative texts with materially different consequences for broker instructions. U.S. House Roll Call 286 on H.R. 6500 shows a 370 to 48 vote on September 1 to concur in the Senate amendments. Those amendments replaced the House text with an AGOA date extension and omitted the proposed liquidation and reliquidation procedure for entries from the 2025 lapse.
An import compliance manager should verify which version cleared Congress before changing broker instructions. A summary of the January bill can support the wrong operational conclusion even when its bill number, sponsor, and program name are correct.
The September vote adopted the substitute, not the January text
The House first passed H.R. 6500 on January 12 as a stand-alone AGOA extension bill. Section 2 of the H.R. 6500 House engrossed bill dated January 12, 2026 addressed qualifying articles entered after September 30, 2025 and before enactment. It directed Customs and Border Protection to liquidate or reliquidate qualifying entries on request, allowed 180 days after enactment for the request, and barred interest on the refund.
Congress did not clear that text in September.
The H.R. 6500 Senate engrossed amendment dated August 8, 2026 begins by striking everything after the enacting clause. It replaces the stand-alone bill with a continuing appropriations package and a group of extensions. Section 2008 changes AGOA sunset references from 2026 to 2028, Section 2009 makes the same date change for the Haiti Economic Lift Program, and Section 2010 extends customs user-fee authorities.
The substitute contains no matching provision for retroactive application, liquidation, reliquidation, a 180-day request, or interest. U.S. Senate Roll Call 228 on H.R. 6500 records a 90 to 6 vote on August 8. The September 1 House vote then concurred in those Senate amendments.
Record
AGOA end date
Treatment of the 2025 lapse
Role in the file
House-passed H.R. 6500 on January 12
2028
Would have created a retroactive rule and a request due within 180 days after enactment
Earlier House version that never became law
Public Law 119-75 on February 3
2026
Retroactive treatment with its own 180-day request period
Current law
Senate substitute on August 8
2028
No new retroactive request provision
Text cleared by both chambers
House concurrence on September 1
No separate text
Adopted the Senate amendments
Final congressional vote
Presidential action
Not complete at this writing
Would enact the substitute, not revive the January language
For an entry file, this is the difference between a superseded search result and a valid basis for broker instructions.
The 180-day clock belongs to the February law
The refund procedure for the 2025 AGOA lapse came from a different statute. Public Law 119-75, signed on February 3, restored AGOA through December 31, 2026 and applied the preferences to the lapse that began on October 1, 2025. Its Section 5019 provided the 180-day request mechanism.
CBP later issued CSMS 68987884 corrected AGOA refund guidance. It identified August 2, 2026 as the deadline for a refund request tied to that lapse. CBP said that after the deadline it would reject a post-summary correction, deny a protest, and deny a written request filed for that retroactive treatment.
H.R. 6500 does not reset that clock merely because the January version once contained similar language. The text that cleared Congress has no clause that reopens the statutory request period or directs CBP to reliquidate those entries again.
This does not foreclose every correction or refund claim involving a current AGOA entry. Ordinary customs procedures can still matter when the issue is classification, origin, valuation, or another claim within its own deadline. The Congress-cleared extension creates no new statutory route back into the closed 2025 lapse process.
A bill number is not a customs instruction
Legislative search pages often organize records by bill number. That is useful for tracking a proposal, but insufficient for approving an entry action after one chamber substitutes the full text.
An older H.R. 6500 PDF can still look authoritative because it is official and accurately records House passage, the AGOA title, the 2028 date, and detailed refund language. But those details describe the January version, not the Senate substitute now awaiting presidential action. A summary based on that version may be accurate about the document it read and still be wrong about the text that cleared Congress.
The failure is version control, not source quality. The relevant questions are which chamber produced the print, when it acted, and how the amendment path led to the text approved by both chambers.
The substitute changes the sunset date but creates no refund workflow, CBP filing code, or instruction for the closed lapse period. Any CBP implementation notice issued after signature would be a separate agency record.
Put the controlling text in the entry file
Add a one-page H.R. 6500 version note to the affected entry file. It should identify the text under review, the action that made it relevant, the operative section, and the entry decision the team believes follows from it.
For the September package, the text approved by both chambers is the Senate engrossed amendment. The relevant provision is Section 2008. If enacted, its legal consequence would be a prospective extension of AGOA's sunset to December 31, 2028. It would not authorize reopening a lapse claim governed by the February law.
Do not approve a refund instruction that relies on the House engrossed bill unless another enacted provision restores that language. Keep the prior-lapse file separate from current AGOA entries. The first is governed by Public Law 119-75 and the August 2 CBP deadline. The second remains subject to the ordinary facts and deadlines for the current entry.
The September 1 House vote completed the congressional agreement on the Senate substitute. It did not itself change the statute. Until presidential action, current law still ends AGOA on December 31, 2026.
If the president signs H.R. 6500, replace the Senate amendment in the version note with the enrolled bill or public law and check Section 2008 again. If that controlling text still omits the January language, the new end date will be December 31, 2028 and the refund conclusion will remain unchanged. A later statute that restores retroactive treatment or new CBP guidance tied to new authority would require a fresh review.
A familiar bill number is not enough to reopen a customs file. The operative instruction must come from the version that completed the legislative path.
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