Costco Wholesale reported fiscal fourth-quarter net sales of $93.9 billion, up 11.2% from $84.4 billion a year earlier, with comparable sales in the United States rising 10.7% on an unadjusted basis, the company said in its September 24 earnings release. Costco reports the figure as comparable sales, the metric commonly described elsewhere as same-store sales. The quarter capped a fiscal year in which total net sales reached $297.2 billion, up 10.1% from $269.9 billion the year before.
What the sales number doesn’t decide: Costco’s growth report doesn’t say which account a retiree should draw from first when a holding like this one has gained value, but The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner does. See the account withdrawal order that limits taxes →
The Comparable-Sales Numbers Behind The Headline
Costco’s fourth-quarter comparable sales rose 10.7% in the United States on an unadjusted basis, matching the figure in the headline, and 9.4% across the total company, according to the company’s release. Adjusted for lower gasoline prices and foreign-exchange swings, the U.S. figure comes down to 7.2% and the total-company figure to 6.7%, a gap of roughly three to four percentage points that shows how much of the headline growth rate reflects fuel prices and currency movement rather than a larger basket at the register. The unadjusted number is the one most quarterly summaries repeat, including the one in this article’s headline, while the adjusted figure is the one Costco itself highlights when describing underlying demand.
Total net sales grew 11.2% for the quarter, a full 1.8 percentage points faster than the 9.4% unadjusted total-company comparable-sales figure covering existing locations. That gap points to warehouses opened within the past year contributing to the overall sales total without yet counting toward the comparable-sales calculation, which by definition excludes any location not open for a full prior-year comparison period. Costco’s release does not list how many new warehouses opened during the fiscal year, so the exact split between new-warehouse sales and other factors behind the 1.8-point gap is not detailed in the primary source.
Why The Headline Cites The U.S., Unadjusted Figure
Costco discloses at least four comparable-sales readings each quarter: total-company and U.S.-only, each unadjusted and adjusted for gasoline prices and foreign exchange. The 10.7% figure in this article’s headline is the unadjusted U.S. number, the largest of the four Costco reported for the quarter, while the smallest, the adjusted total-company figure, came in at 6.7%. For scale, the Census Bureau’s Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey put August 2026 sales for the broader general merchandise stores category up 4.5% year over year, according to its August retail-sales release, roughly half Costco’s own 10.7% U.S. comparable-sales rate for the quarter, a gap that separates one warehouse chain’s reported growth from the retail sector it competes in.
Where The Growth Came From: Digital And Membership
Costco’s fastest-growing sales channel was digital: comparable sales from digitally-enabled channels rose 19.5% in the fourth quarter, or 19.8% adjusted, well ahead of the company’s total comparable-sales growth. That 19.5% rate compares with total-company comparable-sales growth of 9.4% unadjusted, meaning the digital channel grew roughly twice as fast as the overall business this quarter. Membership fee income, the recurring, high-margin revenue line that underpins Costco’s business model, reached $1.850 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $1.724 billion a year earlier, and $5.907 billion for the full fiscal year, up from $5.323 billion, per the same release. Because membership fees are collected regardless of how much a member buys in any given quarter, that growth line offers a separate read on the health of Costco’s customer base beyond the same-store sales figure the headline cites.
What A Widely-Held Retailer’s Growth Means For Retirement Accounts
Costco shares are a common holding inside diversified retirement accounts, whether through a 401(k) index fund, an IRA or a taxable brokerage account, which means a quarter of double-digit sales and comparable-sales growth can translate into portfolio gains for people who never set foot in a warehouse. Those gains carry their own tax questions once a retiree begins taking distributions, since which account a withdrawal comes from first, and in what order, can change how much of that growth is eventually taxed. The company’s release reports the business results only; it does not, and was never meant to, tell an individual shareholder which of their own accounts a distribution should come from once a required minimum distribution date arrives.
The Full Fiscal Year Picture
For the year, Costco’s total comparable sales rose 8.4% unadjusted and 6.6% adjusted, while diluted earnings per share for the fiscal year reached $20.76, up from $18.21 a year earlier. Net income for the fiscal year came to $9.226 billion, up from $8.099 billion. The fourth quarter alone contributed $2.998 billion of that net income, compared with $2.610 billion in the same quarter last year, a gain of roughly $388 million in a single quarter and one of the larger year-over-year jumps disclosed in the release. Costco Wholesale Corporation’s release lists those sales, comparable-sales, membership and earnings figures without naming an individual executive or projecting comparable-sales growth into the coming fiscal year, a format the company follows most quarters, leaving investors and members to draw their own conclusions from the figures it chose to disclose.
The Withdrawal Decision A Strong Quarter Doesn’t Settle
Costco’s comparable-sales growth this quarter adds to the case for the stock’s role in a diversified retirement portfolio, but a strong quarter does not settle the order a distribution should follow, or how a gain like this interacts with a required minimum distribution due later this year. Those decisions carry their own tax consequences that a sales report does not address.
The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner works through the RMD schedule and the IRMAA tier calculator, the two figures a portfolio gain like this one eventually runs into.
Compare the RMD schedule against this year’s dates in The Retirement Tax & Withdrawal Planner.
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
