Markets
Costco Declared a $30 Special Dividend Worth $13.3 Billion
Costco declared a $30-a-share special dividend on November 10, 2026, about $13.3 billion in total. It is payable December 4 to holders of record on November 24.
Costco has returned to its habit of handing back cash in one large lump. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the close on Tuesday, November 10, the warehouse club said its board had declared a special cash dividend of $30 a share, payable on December 4 to shareholders of record at the close of business on November 24. The total payout comes to about $13.3 billion.
It is the largest special dividend the company has paid. The previous one, $15 a share, was paid in January 2024, and before that Costco paid $10 a share in December 2020. Each was declared after a stretch in which cash built up on the balance sheet faster than the company could spend it on new warehouses. The regular quarterly dividend is separate and unchanged: $1.47 a share, declared on October 14 and payable on November 13.
The board paired the payout with a fresh buyback authorisation of up to $4 billion, which runs to November 2030. It replaces the $4 billion programme adopted in 2023, which was due to expire in January 2027 and under which $3.1 billion of stock had been bought. The release did not say how the dividend will be funded or include any comment from management, and it carried no update on sales; Costco operates 945 warehouses, 653 of them in the United States and Puerto Rico.
Investors liked it. The shares rose about 1.9% in after-hours trading, according to StockTitan. With the stock trading near $1,000 for much of 2026, the payout is worth roughly 3% of the share price, against a regular yield of well under 1%. Because the amount is small relative to the price, normal ex-dividend rules apply: with next-day settlement, the stock should trade without the dividend from November 24, the record date, and its price should drop by about $30 that morning, all else equal.
The tax treatment is what the next three weeks will be about for many holders. A special dividend is taxed in the year it is paid, so the December date puts it in 2026 for US investors, and options on the stock will be adjusted for the payout under exchange rules. For anyone trading the shares before November 24, the point is that the $30 is not free money: it moves from the company's balance sheet to the shareholder's account, and the share price adjusts on the ex-date.