Costco Stock (COST): Membership Fees, Special Dividends and Valuation in Numbers

Michael Whitman · Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020 · YouTube creator, 137K subscribers · Published 2026-11-07

Costco stock trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker COST. The company sells groceries, gasoline and everything else at thin margins in 939 warehouses, and charges shoppers a yearly fee to get in. That fee is the reason the stock gets studied the way it does: it is small next to sales but large next to profit.

Quote pages show a P/E near 51 and a 0.56% yield. They do not show how much of the profit the fees cover, whether members keep renewing, or what the special dividends have added. We pulled those from Costco’s 10-Ks, its results releases and the price record.

COST at a glance: 3.7% below the May 2026 record

Price is the November 6, 2026 close. Costco’s fiscal year ended on August 30, 2026 and its first-quarter fiscal 2027 report had not come out yet, so the latest full year is also the trailing twelve months.

In 2026 to November 6 the price rose 22.2%, against 8.8% for the S&P 500 with dividends. Its record close was $1,094.32 on May 19, 2026, and it closed 3.7% below that. The lowest close of the past year was $850.00 on December 22, 2025.

How it works: a membership fee in front of a thin margin

Membership fees are about 2% of revenue. In fiscal 2026 Costco took in $297.25 billion in net sales and $5.91 billion in fees, 1.95% of total revenue. Its gross margin on sales was 11.09%, and after running the warehouses the operating margin on everything was 3.85%.

The fee is close to pure profit, so it carries weight. Fees equaled 50.6% of the year’s $11.69 billion of operating income. Take them out and the rest of the business earned about $5.78 billion, roughly 1.9% of net sales, by our arithmetic.

Membership fees: price steps and 84.1 million paid members

The fee steps up every few years. The basic U.S. membership was $55 in the fiscal 2015 10-K, rose to $60 on June 1, 2017, and to $65 on September 1, 2024. The Executive upgrade now costs another $65, with a 2% reward capped at $1,250 a year. The 10-K says the latest increase accounted for about 30% of fee growth in fiscal 2026 and 40% in fiscal 2025.

Who pays. Costco counted 84.1 million paid members at the end of fiscal 2026, up from 81.0 million, and 42.3 million of them (50.3%) were Executive members. That count includes memberships that lapsed within the past year. Executive members bought 75.2% of worldwide net sales.

The original data: membership fees as a share of Costco’s profit

Membership fees as a share of operating income, fiscal 2009-2026. Both figures come from Costco’s XBRL filings for each fiscal year. The fiscal years run 52 or 53 weeks to the Sunday nearest August 31.

• Fiscal 2009: fees of $1.53 billion against operating income of $1.78 billion, 86.3%.
• Fiscal 2015 to 2019: between 69.4% and 72.1%.
• Fiscal 2021 to 2026: 57.8%, 54.2%, 56.4%, 52.0%, 51.3% and 50.6%, the lowest in the series.
• Why it fell: fees grew 3.85 times from fiscal 2009 to 2026 while operating income grew 6.58 times. The merchandise side has been earning more, not the fee earning less. Fees rose 11.0% in fiscal 2026.

Renewal rates, as printed in each 10-K. Costco measures renewals on a trailing basis, covering memberships that came up for renewal seven to eighteen months before the year end. Before fiscal 2023 the 10-Ks gave whole numbers.

The fiscal 2025 and 2026 10-Ks print the same two rates. The U.S. and Canada rate has stayed between 90% and 93% at all twelve year ends, and the worldwide rate between 87% and 90.5%.

Download the data: membership fees and renewal rates and results-day moves. You may reuse both with credit and a link back, as set out in the site license.

Special dividends: five one-off payouts worth $44 a share

Costco pays a regular quarterly dividend and, every few years, a one-off special one. We flagged any payment larger than three times the regular quarterly amount paid just before it, which picks out five. The dates are the ex-dividend dates from the price record; each amount matches the 8-K in which Costco declared it, which also gives the record and payment dates.

• In total the five paid $44 a share. The $15 special, paid in fiscal 2024, cost Costco $6.66 billion, according to the fiscal 2026 10-K.
• The regular dividend rose from $0.40 a quarter in early 2016 to $1.47, 3.67 times, after a 13% raise in April 2026. Dividends declared in fiscal 2026 were $5.54 a share, 26.7% of earnings. Our payout ratio page explains the measure.
• Buybacks are small by comparison: $847 million in fiscal 2026, 891,000 shares at an average of $950.90, about 0.2% of the share count and 34.5% of the $2.46 billion declared in dividends.

The gaps between specials have run from about two to three and a half years. That is a record, not a schedule, and Costco does not promise one. Our dividend growth page covers how regular raises compound.

A worked example: what Costco’s 50.7x multiple buys

All inputs are in the fiscal 2026 10-K and the September 24, 2026 release, except the share price.

1. Market value. $1,053.56 × 443,129,349 shares = $466.9 billion.
2. P/E. $1,053.56 ÷ $20.76 = 50.7, the multiple explained on our P/E ratio page.
3. Earnings yield. The inverse is $20.76 ÷ $1,053.56 = 1.97% a year.
4. The fee slice. $5.907 billion of fees ÷ 443.1 million shares = $13.33 of fees per share, against $26.37 of operating income per share. Fees alone, before tax, are about 1.3% of the share price.
5. Fee per member. $5.907 billion ÷ an average of 82.55 million paid members = $71.56 a year, which sits between the $65 basic fee and the $130 Executive total.

The multiple has climbed. At each fiscal year’s last close the P/E was 26.1x in fiscal 2015, 30.8x in 2016, 40.0x in 2021, 53.9x in 2024 and 45.5x in 2026, when the price was $945.47. The 50.7x today is near the top of that range.

Results days: from morning releases to after the close

We matched each quarterly results 8-K since March 2005 (86 of them) to the first session that could react. Each release’s conference-call time shows when it came out: up to March 2015, Costco released before the open and held a morning Pacific-time call that day (40 releases). From May 27, 2015 it released after the close (46). Three Item 2.02 filings that carried only monthly sales or an outlook are left out.

• The median move was 1.83%, against 0.70% across the other 5,371 trading days.
• 10 of the 86 moved 5% or more, against 0.7% of other days; 25 moved 3% or more.
• Direction: 37 were up, 43.0%, against a 52.3% up-rate on other days (two-sided binomial p = 0.10). That is not significant at the usual 5% level, and it is no guide to the next one.
• The largest were +9.19% on October 10, 2007 and −8.59% on December 14, 2018.
• Since 2021, 23 releases had a median move of 2.38%, and 11 were up. The latest, on September 25, 2026, moved +2.93%.

When it fails: when a 50.7x multiple meets a slow year

Steady sales have not meant a steady price. COST fell 48.7% from May 1 to May 25, 2000, including 21.5% on May 24, and did not regain that high until June 29, 2007. It fell 48.5% from July 8, 2008 to March 9, 2009, and 31.5% from April 7 to May 20, 2022. A forecast cut can hit as hard as a results day: on August 5, 2003, the morning Costco lowered its fourth-quarter profit forecast, the stock fell 18.7%. Most recently it fell 21.1% from February 13 to December 22, 2025, then made a new high on May 19, 2026. Our drawdown page explains the measure.

A high multiple leaves little room. At 50.7x, a slower year can cut the price even while earnings grow. In calendar 2025 the stock fell 5.9%, against a 17.9% gain for the S&P 500 with dividends, even though fiscal 2025 earnings per share rose 10.0%.

It does not always beat the index. COST beat the S&P 500 with dividends in 7 of the 11 calendar years from 2015 to 2025, including 2021 (50.7% against 28.7%) and 2024 (38.8% against 25.0%). It lagged in 2016, 2017, 2022 and 2025.

The fee share is moving. At 50.6% of operating income, fees matter less to profit than they did, so merchandise margins, wages and tariffs matter more. The fiscal 2026 10-K describes about $500 million of tariffs paid under the IEEPA program that the Supreme Court struck down in February 2026, with refunds counted only as they arrive.

Questions people ask

Does Costco pay a dividend?

Yes. The regular dividend is $1.47 a quarter, payable November 13, 2026, a 0.56% yield at $1,053.56. It has also paid five special dividends since 2012, the latest $15 a share in late 2023. Our dividend yield page covers the arithmetic.

What is Costco’s market cap?

$466.9 billion at the November 6, 2026 close, using the 443,129,349 shares on the 10-K cover. Our market cap page explains the measure.

How much of Costco’s profit comes from membership fees?

Fees of $5.91 billion equaled 50.6% of fiscal 2026 operating income. That share has fallen in each of the last three fiscal years and was 86.3% in fiscal 2009.

What is Costco’s membership renewal rate?

92.3% in the U.S. and Canada and 89.8% worldwide at the end of fiscal 2026, per the 10-K.

Why is Costco’s P/E so high?

At $1,053.56 the price is 50.7 times fiscal 2026 earnings per share of $20.76. That is a market price, not a finding about value: it was 26.1x at the end of fiscal 2015 on the same calculation.

Related

The ratios here are explained on P/E ratio, earnings per share and dividend. For another big-box retailer measured the same way, see Target stock. Costco last split its shares 2-for-1 in January 2000, the kind of change covered on our stock split page.

This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.