Dollar General plans about 450 new stores in 2026

Dollar General’s plan to add roughly 450 U.S. stores in fiscal 2026 will ripple far beyond the new leases. For store workers, that kind of growth means more hiring, more opening crews, more training and more pressure on district leaders who already have to keep existing stores staffed and stocked while new locations come online.

The company said its 2026 real estate plan also includes about 10 new stores in Mexico, around 20 relocations and about 4,250 remodels and renovations. As of January 30, 2026, Dollar General said it operated 20,893 stores across the United States and Mexico, with about 80% of the chain serving towns of 20,000 people or fewer. Retail TouchPoints reported that most new builds in 2026 will use an 8,500-square-foot format, underscoring that the company is still building out in rural and small-town markets where the nearest grocery or discount option can be miles away.

That scale of expansion comes after a strong selling year. Dollar General said third-quarter 2025 net sales rose 4.6% to $10.6 billion, same-store sales increased 2.5% and customer traffic climbed 2.5%. Those numbers help explain why management is still leaning into growth even after opening 575 stores in 2025. The company was founded in 1939, and its current footprint has become one of the largest in U.S. retail.

For employees, the question is not only how many new stores get built, but what happens to the people already on payroll. Every opening pulls on the same labor pool: new hires need training, store managers need support, district managers get stretched across opening teams and remodels, and distribution and fleet crews have to make sure product lands on time. A growth plan of this size can create promotions and transfers, but it can also deepen the churn that leaves current stores short on coverage, especially in a chain where single-associate shifts and thin staffing have long been a recurring concern.

The safety side matters too. In July 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor said Dollar General agreed to pay $12 million and make corporate-wide safety changes, including adding safety managers and improving stocking efficiency. That settlement was a reminder that rapid expansion can carry real operational costs when frontline crews are already trying to keep up with freight, resets and customer volume.

The broader retail impact reaches beyond Dollar General’s own workforce. USDA researchers found that when a dollar store opens in a census tract, independent grocery retailers are 2.3% more likely to exit, with the effect stronger in rural areas. In rural census tracts, the likelihood of an independent grocery store closing after a dollar store opens was 5%, about three times the urban rate. For Dollar General, expansion may still be a growth story. For workers and nearby merchants, it is also a story about how much strain one chain can absorb before the cost shows up on the sales floor.