Costco sales rise 10.6% as digital growth tops 20%

Costco's sales kept climbing in the five weeks ended July 5, reaching $29.24 billion, up 10.6% from a year earlier as digitally enabled comparable sales rose 20.9%. The company also lifted its quarterly cash dividend to $1.47 a share, a reminder that the warehouse chain is still generating enough cash to reward shareholders while its stores and fulfillment network stay busy.

Total-company comparable sales rose 8.8% in the period, and net sales for the first 44 weeks of fiscal 2026 reached $250.43 billion, up 10.1% from $227.46 billion a year earlier. Costco said it now operates 933 warehouses worldwide, up from 931 in its May 28 fiscal third-quarter update and 891 in its Sept. 26, 2024 year-end report, with 641 in the United States and Puerto Rico and 115 in Canada in the May tally.

For employees on the floor, that pace points to more than a healthy sales chart. A company growing this fast has to keep receiving docks moving, pallets flowing to the sales floor, registers staffed and digital orders moving through the building, and the 20.9% rise in digitally enabled comparable sales shows that online demand is no side business anymore. Costco's full-year 2025 e-commerce comparable sales rose 16.1%, after net sales climbed 8.1% to $269.9 billion, so the pressure on warehouse teams is coming from both the aisles and the app.

The dividend history tells a similar story about cash generation. Costco paid $1.30 a share on May 15 after a Jan. 15 announcement at the same rate, and the new $1.47 payment is due Aug. 7 for shareholders of record July 24. The July 2024 membership-fee increase, which lifted Gold Star, Business and Business add-on memberships to $65 and Executive memberships to $130 and affected around 52 million memberships, remains part of the backdrop for how Costco funds expansion, operations and shareholder returns.

For warehouse workers, the key question is not whether Costco can keep selling, but how that sales growth shows up on the schedule. Stronger traffic and faster digital growth can mean more hours, more headcount and more room to breathe, but it can also mean tighter productivity targets if the company tries to squeeze more out of the same crews.