Ano Kaisha no Shikumi
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Costco Wholesale

Costco Wholesale Corporation

Company highlights

A company whose membership fee income equals 51.3% of its operating income.

Vol.4, Chapter 1 (as of 2026-08-22)

Key figures

Period to 2026-08-30ConsolidatedU.S. GAAP

RevenueDisclosed US$303.2B
Operating marginCalculated 3.9%
Net assets to total assetsCalculated 40.2%

Business revenue model

Featured in

Vol.4, Chapter 1 (as of 2026-08-22)

“Kaisha no Shikumi: Subscriptions”, Chapter 1: Costco and Amazon Prime: The Same Annual Fee, Compared in the Filings

Book’s reference date 2026-08-22 / data last checked 2026-10-20

Key points in this volumeA subscription business's profits cannot be judged by member count alone.

Costco's membership fee income is US$5.3 billion. That is less than 2% of sales, but it equals 51.3% of the US$10.4 billion consolidated operating income.

On the yardstick of sales it is a bit part; on the yardstick of profit it plays the lead. Holding the margin on goods thin and earning through fees instead is what produces the swap.

Figures from the book

A membership fee worth under 2% of sales becomes the lead role when measured against profit
Costco's membership fees and profit (figure from Chapter 1 of “Kaisha no Shikumi: Subscriptions”, in Japanese)

The move that changed Costco

It held the increases in the annual fee to two, in 2017 and in 2024.

In June 2017 Costco raised its annual fee in the United States from $55 to $60. The renewal rate in the United States and Canada was 90%. The next increase came on September 1, 2024, at $65, seven years and three months later. The policy of not passing rising costs through to shelf prices in full, and of investing in lowering them, stayed in the annual reports throughout that stretch. Executive Members, who pay twice the fee, kept growing, and by the time of the 2024 increase the renewal rate was 92.3%. Fee income went from $2.9 billion in FY2017 to $5.3 billion in FY2025, and paid members from 47.6 million to 81 million.

Coverage in the book

  • $5.3 Billion in Annual Fees, 51.3% of $10.4 Billion in Operating Profit
  • What Does Costco Earn From?
  • The Fee Went Up Twice in Ten Years
  • Costco's Ten Fiscal Years, and Its Dividend Policy
  • The Interval Between Increases Differs at the Two Companies

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Cover of “Kaisha no Shikumi: Subscriptions” “Kaisha no Shikumi: Subscriptions” Chapter 1: Costco Wholesale “Costco and Amazon Prime: The Same Annual Fee, Compared in the Filings” “Ano Kaisha no Shikumi” series, Vol.4 — Kindle and paperback Find it on Amazon →
noteコストコの年会費は売上の1.93%　なのに営業利益の51.3%に相当する (Japanese) 2026-09-15 Video年会費が営業利益の51.3%に相当する　コストコとAmazonプライムの決算で学ぶ「会費の位置」の読み方 (Japanese) 2026-09-21

Company profile

No securities code (not listed) / Retail Trade

Tables scroll sideways

Disclosed data

Source: Annual Securities Report ( to 2026-08-30)

Profitability ★★☆☆☆position among all companies 3.9%
Growth (revenue, 4-year average) ★★★☆☆position among all companies 7.5%
Capital efficiency ★★★★★position among all companies 25.8%

Business activities and revenue composition

Breakdown by business: not published

Revenue and profit

Performance, financial position and capital allocation

Finance
40.2% Net assets to total assets FY ending 8/2026 · consolidated / calculated
Capital allocation
133.8% Cash conversion FY ending 8/2026 · consolidated / calculated

Costco Wholesale

Recent performance trends

Source Annual securities reports

303 202 101 0 4 years ago 3 years ago 2 years ago Last year This year Net sales and operating revenue ¥ billion
Consolidated indicators (6 items)
Item4 years ago3 years ago2 years agoLast yearThis year
Net sales US$227.0 billion US$242.3 billion US$254.5 billion US$275.2 billion US$303.2 billion
Operating income US$7.8 billion US$8.1 billion US$9.3 billion US$10.4 billion US$11.7 billion
Net income US$5.8 billion US$6.3 billion US$7.4 billion US$8.1 billion US$9.2 billion
Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities US$7.4 billion US$11.1 billion US$11.3 billion US$13.3 billion US$15.8 billion
Total assets US$64.2 billion US$69.0 billion US$69.8 billion US$77.1 billion US$89.0 billion
Net assets US$20.6 billion US$25.1 billion US$23.6 billion US$29.2 billion US$35.8 billion

Revenue scale in the same industry

Companies in the same industry with disclosed revenue: 2 (no comparison)

Sources and methodology

Basic indicators
ItemValueConsolidated / Non-consolidatedSource
Net sales US$303.2 billion Disclosed
Operating income US$11.7 billion Disclosed
Net income US$9.2 billion Disclosed
Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities US$15.8 billion Disclosed
Total assets US$89.0 billion Disclosed
Net assets US$35.8 billion Disclosed
Operating margin 3.9%ConsolidatedCalculated
Net assets to total assets 40.2%ConsolidatedCalculated
Net margin 3.0%ConsolidatedCalculated
Return on equity 25.8%ConsolidatedCalculated
How to read the figures, and caveats

Terms

  • Consolidated: the parent company together with the subsidiaries it consolidates
  • Parent-only: the single company that filed the annual securities report
  • Calculated: a disclosed figure put through the formula shown
  • Not disclosed: no such value in the filing (not treated as zero)
  • Not retrieved: a value this page could not extract, including values in the filing that could not be matched. The same item may appear in another table
  • Segment: a business division the company uses in its disclosures
  • Industry median: the middle value among companies in the same industry that disclose the item
  • ★: position when every company is lined up by value (not a judgement of the company)See the formulas
  • Source: document name, period covered, filing date and where it was obtained
  • Tables scroll sideways

Key figures

  • Operating margin 3.9%　Operating income ÷ revenue 　＝ US$11.7 billion ÷ US$303.2 billion
    The denominator is revenue under U.S. GAAP (consolidated, U.S. GAAP).
  • Net assets to total assets 40.2%　Stockholders' equity ÷ total assets 　＝ US$35.8 billion ÷ US$89.0 billion
    Calculated here from stockholders' equity and total assets (no equity-to-asset ratio disclosed by U.S. companies; the Japanese field is the company's own disclosed value)
  • Net margin 3%　Net income ÷ revenue 　＝ US$9.2 billion ÷ US$303.2 billion
  • Return on equity 25.8%　Net income ÷ stockholders' equity 　＝ US$9.2 billion ÷ US$35.8 billion
    Calculated here (not a value the company disclosed)

Business activities and revenue composition

  • Breakdown by business: machine transcription of segment information (business divisions used in disclosures) in the annual securities report. No table where segment sales differ from the disclosed total by more than 1%, or where the company reports a single business

Finance

  • Net assets to total assets　Net assets ÷ total assets

Capital allocation

  • ★: position when all companies are sorted by value and cut into fifths (a position, not a rating). The five items with ★: only where both numerator and denominator are available on a consolidated basisSee the formulas
  • Cash conversion　Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities ÷ operating income

Data sources and calculation methods

Primary source: the annual securities report of Costco Wholesale Corporation on EDINET, the FSA’s disclosure system (free to read)
Corporate number: / Accounting standard: U.S. GAAP

  • Amounts: machine transcription of EDINET XBRL (no manual re-keying). Long narrative notes are text and not in the account list. Identifiers: machine transcription of the EDINET code list (retrieved 2026-08-22)
  • ★: position of the value calculated from disclosed figures among the 4,240 companies on this site, on a five-step scale. Not a judgement of the company. No forecasts usedThe formulas and how they are counted
  • No rank: net assets as a share of total assets, cash conversion and revenue per employee (size alone does not show quality). Industry median shown for comparison. Cash conversion of 100%: operating cash flow equal to operating profit
  • Profit-and-loss chart: only where “sales − cost of sales − SG&A = operating income” holds between disclosed values. Cost breakdown: the six largest SG&A items
  • Trend charts: key financial indicators of the annual securities report. Amounts in billions of yen (dividend per share in yen). Long-run chart joins reports filed in different years (newer report for overlapping years). Some items stop part-way after a change of accounting standard. A stock split changes the weight of one share. Consolidated and parent-only in separate tables
  • Revenue scale in the same industry: bars of revenue (disclosed values) of companies in the same industry grouping as the industry pages, largest first. Only the top three and the two companies either side of this one. Each company’s latest fiscal year. An order of size, not a ranking of quality or an investment view
  • Share prices: not published (no data source allows redistribution). No share-price-based indicators (such as the price earnings ratio) and no extension of past growth into the future
  • Average age, average length of service and average annual salary: the reporting company alone (the parent). At a holding company, a small head-office staff. Payout ratio (basic facts): dividend per share ÷ consolidated earnings per share, calculated here (the payout ratio in the annual securities report is the reporting company’s figure, on a different basis). Representative and founding date: gBizINFO (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), some companies only
  • “Retrieved disclosed figures”: every value readable as a number from the annual securities report. Company-wide values only (no segment or other breakdowns)
  • Segment table: machine transcription of the segment information in the annual securities report. Business names as labelled by the company in its XBRL. No table where segment sales differ from the disclosed total by more than 1%. Adjustments, corporate, eliminations and “other” left out of the table and the share denominator, as they are not businesses
  • Breakdowns of amounts, not diagrams of how the business works. Who pays whom, and for what, is not in the disclosed figures; no lines drawn from guesswork
  • No reproduction of the book’s content. Figures from the same filings; text written separately