Costco books $184 million in tariff refunds and says most will go to lower prices
The warehouse retailer's fourth-quarter beat leaned on a one-off customs repayment, and the reported size of the profit gain differs between accounts.
Assembled by Claude from 8 sources at 8 outlets · Friday, September 25, 2026, Evening edition, 5:22 PM EDT · no human byline
What happened
Costco confirmed it received $184 million in tariff refunds, with more on the way, according to its latest earnings call adn.com. The company said most of the money will go toward lower prices foxbusiness.com.
Reported earnings came in at $6.75 per share, including a 15-cent nonrecurring benefit related to the refunds, and total revenues rose 11.1% year over year tradingview.com. Gross margin contracted 11 basis points year over year to 11%, a figure the company attributes partly to gasoline theglobeandmail.com. RBC said Costco's fundamentals remain stable after the fiscal fourth quarter finance.yahoo.com.
Accounts of the profit line do not agree. Quartz reported that fourth-quarter net income rose 15% to $3 billion, boosted by $184 million in refunds collected under the IEEPA tariff authority qz.com. A report on the earnings call said net income jumped 12.3% to $2.61 billion, with analysts pressing management on membership growth deceleration, the return on tariff reinvestment and the grocery inflation trajectory finance.biggo.com. Both accounts credit the same refund.
Why it matters to investors
The refund is a reversal of a cost, not a trading gain, and the company has flagged it as such. Costco said tariff refunds and refund reinvestments are nonrecurring items that will continue to affect its financial results in fiscal year 2027 foxbusiness.com, and its finance chief repeated that the refunds and reinvestments will keep moving the reported numbers into fiscal 2027 cfodive.com.
That creates two distinct signals inside one print. The first is the underlying trading performance, with revenue growth of 11.1% tradingview.com and a gross margin of 11% theglobeandmail.com. The second is a policy-driven, non-operating item that lands in the same quarter and that management says will recur in the next fiscal year foxbusiness.comcfodive.com.
The decision to put most of the money into prices rather than margin foxbusiness.com is the part with read-across for consumer inflation, because it routes a government repayment back to shoppers rather than to earnings.
What to watch
The first item is the size of the further refunds Costco says are still coming adn.com, and how much of that is reinvested in prices rather than retained foxbusiness.com. The second is the membership growth deceleration that analysts raised on the call finance.biggo.com, since fee income is the part of the model that does not depend on tariff policy.
The third is how the company reconciles the profit figures now in circulation qz.comfinance.biggo.com, and whether fiscal 2027 guidance separates operating results from the non-recurring customs items it has flagged cfodive.com.
Sources
- adn.com: Costco wins $184M in tariff refunds, with more expected - Anchorage Daily News (2026-09-25)
- foxbusiness.com: Costco receives $184M in tariff refunds, says most will go toward lower prices (2026-09-25)
- tradingview.com: COST Q4 Earnings Beat Estimates on Sales and Digital Strength - TradingView (2026-09-25)
- theglobeandmail.com: COST Q4 Earnings Beat Estimates on Sales and Digital Strength - The Globe and Mail (2026-09-25)
- qz.com: Costco Q4 2026 earnings beat expectations on tariff refund - Quartz (2026-09-25)
- finance.biggo.com: [Costco Wholesale Q4 2026 Earnings Call] Net Income Jumps 12.3% to $2.61B as Tariff ... (2026-09-25)
- cfodive.com: Costco CFO doubles down on tariff strategy, winks at churro comeback (2026-09-25)
- finance.yahoo.com: Costco Wholesale Fundamentals Remain Stable After Fiscal Q4, RBC Says (2026-09-25)