Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST, ETR:CTO) has announced an increase to its annual fees for its 52 million 'member' customers in US and Canada for the first time since 2017.
From the start of September, Gold Star individual and business members will see a $5 hike, while the cost of its higher-tier Executive membership by $10.
The seven-year wait since its last membership fee hike is longer than the roughly five and a half years it usually waits.
Costco reported net sales of $24.48 billion for the five weeks to July 7, an increase of 7.4% from last year.
Over the first 44 weeks of its fiscal year, net sales totalled $210.55 billion, an increase of 6.9% from a year ago.
The Washington-headquartered group, which operates 882 warehouses, of which 609 are in the United States and Puerto Rico, 108 in Canada, 29 in the UK and 15 in Australia, said last year that it was stepping up checks to make sure non-members were not borrowing members’ cards.