Costco Plans 33 New Warehouses for Fiscal 2027, Backed by $7.5 Billion in Spending

Costco Wholesale closed out fiscal 2026 with 939 warehouses worldwide and is now pouring $7.5 billion into building more, according to TradingView. The company plans to open 33 new locations in fiscal 2027, including five relocations, as CEO Ron Vachris pushes toward his stated long-term goal of roughly 30 net new warehouses a year.

Costco's fourth-quarter net sales hit $93.87 billion, up 9.4% on a comparable-sales basis, according to TradingView. Net income came in just under $3 billion, or $6.75 a diluted share.

Where the money's going

Costco spent $6.4 billion on capital projects in fiscal 2026. Next year that number jumps to $7.5 billion, per TradingView. The company isn't hiding the ball on where some of that's landing.

Vachris told analysts on the earnings call that Costco sees "significant opportunities for new warehouse growth, including new U.S. markets such as Buffalo, New York, and Lawrence, Kansas," according to The Hill. Both are genuinely new territory for the chain, not just another store crammed into an already-saturated suburb.

The Hill reports Costco has already named the 14 stores opening soonest, though the company won't confirm locations more than three months out. That's a smart, disciplined policy. No need to promise a town a warehouse two years before ground is even broken.

What's opening in the next two months

While the fiscal 2027 plan is the bigger headline, Costco already has stores scheduled to open in October and November 2026. LiveNow from FOX reports five U.S. locations opening in October and five more in November, plus four additional stores in Alberta and Ontario, Canada.

One of those October openings is in Amherst, a Buffalo suburb, marking the first Costco in the Buffalo metro region. LiveNow notes the closest existing Costco to Buffalo residents has been 75 miles away in Rochester. That's a long drive for a rotisserie chicken.

Local permitting records show Costco's pipeline stretching well beyond the announced openings. The Hill reports the company has plans moving through approval processes in Downey, California; Charleston County, South Carolina; and Hillsborough County, Florida, with additional efforts underway in Fresno, California; Lake St. Louis, Missouri; Southborough, Massachusetts; Silver Spring, Maryland; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Des Plaines, Illinois. The Des Plaines project is expected to function as a business center rather than a standard retail warehouse.

The membership math still works

Costco ended the quarter with 42.3 million paid executive members and a 92.3% renewal rate across the U.S. and Canada, according to TradingView. That renewal number is central to Costco's business model. People pay an annual fee for the privilege of shopping there, and the overwhelming majority keep paying it year after year.

LiveNow from FOX cites older figures from Costco's May 28 earnings call, when the company had 928 locations worldwide and 82.9 million total paid members, and had revised its near-term opening target down to 26 new stores. That's not a contradiction with the newer numbers; it's four months of growth on top of an already-moving company. The 82.9 million figure covers all paid members, while the 42.3 million from the more recent report refers specifically to Executive members, a distinct subset who pay the higher $130 annual fee versus the $65 Gold Star tier.

What could slow it down

Costco's own management flagged one open question during the call: whether increased capital spending and a wave of new openings can keep comparable-sales and membership growth climbing at the same pace, according to TradingView. Retail history is littered with chains that expanded fast and diluted their own store traffic in the process.

Management also pointed to a triple-digit rise in AI-driven search traffic to Costco's site, though executives said agentic commerce, where AI assistants complete purchases on a shopper's behalf, is still in its early stages. Costco is also rolling out nationwide delivery partnerships with Uber Eats and DoorDash, which the company says have been mostly additive rather than cannibalizing warehouse visits.

Heading into fiscal 2027, the key question is whether Costco can keep opening dozens of new warehouses a year in both established and brand-new markets without watering down the membership loyalty that's made the model work for four decades. The first real test lands with the October and November openings in Buffalo, Alberta, and Ontario.