Costco has been on an absolute tear lately. The warehouse giant — already a borderline cult for its most devoted members — is rolling out a stack of changes in 2026 that range from mildly interesting to genuinely surprising. We’re talking standalone gas stations, food court crackdowns, eight-second checkouts, new Kirkland products dropping like sneaker releases, and an expansion spree that’s costing billions. Some of this stuff is already live. Some is coming in the next few months. All of it matters if you’re one of the 70+ million households that hold a Costco card.
Let’s get into it.
The Food Court Freeloader Era Is Over
If you’ve ever walked into a Costco food court and wondered why the line was 40 people deep at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, here’s part of the answer: a lot of those people weren’t even members. For years, non-members figured out they could slip in through the exit, walk straight to the food court, and grab a $1.50 hot dog combo without ever showing a membership card. Outdoor food courts made this even easier — no doors to sneak through at all.
That’s done. Costco is installing card scanners at food court kiosks across the country. They started showing up in Southern California warehouses a couple years ago, but the nationwide rollout is happening now. You scan your membership card before you can even place an order at the touchscreen terminal. Reddit users who’ve already dealt with them say it’s painless — tap and go. But if you don’t have a card, you don’t eat.
There’s an upside for Executive Members here too. Since food court purchases now run through the membership system, there’s growing expectation that those purchases will count toward the 2% cash back reward. That hasn’t been officially confirmed across all locations yet, but the infrastructure is there. If you eat at the food court even semi-regularly, that adds up.
A Standalone Gas Station — No Warehouse Attached
This one caught people off guard. Costco is building a standalone gas station in Mission Viejo, California, scheduled to open at the end of June 2026. No warehouse. No shopping carts. Just 40 pumps and a membership scanner. You pull up, swipe your card, fill your tank, and leave without having to fight through a parking lot full of people loading 48-packs of toilet paper into their SUVs.
It’s a first for the company. Costco gas has always been attached to a warehouse, which means the lines are long and the lots are chaotic. A standalone station solves that problem entirely. And if Mission Viejo works — which, come on, it’s cheap gas in Southern California, of course it’ll work — industry watchers expect more of these to pop up around the country. CEO Ron Vachris has already talked about adding more gas stations as part of the company’s broader expansion strategy.
35 New Warehouses and a $6.5 Billion Expansion
Costco opened 24 new warehouses in 2025. For 2026, they’re targeting 35. That’s a massive jump, and they’re putting $6.5 billion behind it. Twenty-eight of those are confirmed U.S. locations. Some are already open — Liberty Hill, Texas launched a 152,000-square-foot warehouse with a gas station, pharmacy, optical department, hearing-aid center, food court, and tire center on March 11, 2026. Roseville, California opened on January 23 with lines stretching for hours, and the mayor publicly celebrated the sales tax revenue it’ll bring to fund city services.
Not all 35 are brand-new markets, though. Five are relocations — Costco is taking high-volume stores that have outgrown their current buildings and moving them to larger properties with bigger parking lots. The original locations are being converted into Costco Business Centers, which carry different inventory (think restaurant-size portions and office supplies) and open earlier. It’s a clever way to double their footprint without abandoning existing leases.
Internationally, the biggest headline is a 200,000+ square-foot store in Monterrey, Mexico — the largest Costco warehouse in Latin America. Additional stores in Mexico City, Puebla, and Queretaro are in the pipeline beyond 2026. As of January 2026, the company was running 923 warehouses worldwide, with 633 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
Checkout Is Getting Radically Faster
Ask anyone what the worst part of shopping at Costco is, and 90% of them will say the checkout line. The company knows this. And they’re attacking it from two directions at once.
First, there’s the prescan system. A Costco employee with a handheld scanner walks up to your cart while you’re still waiting in line and scans everything before you even reach the register. By the time you get to the front, most or all of your items are already rung up. Early testing showed this speeds up checkout by 20%.
Second — and this is the wild one — Costco is piloting automated pay stations that work alongside the prescan system. According to an earnings call transcript, these stations are reducing transaction times to an average of eight seconds. Eight seconds. That’s less time than it takes to dig your card out of your wallet. The company says early test results show better traffic flow throughout the store and that customers actually like it. If this scales across all locations, the Costco checkout nightmare might genuinely become a thing of the past.
Kirkland Signature Is Getting Bigger and More Local
Costco’s private label brand has always been the quiet engine driving the company. Kirkland Signature products are consistently cheaper than name brands, and half the time they’re made by the same manufacturers anyway. In the last few months of 2025 alone, Costco launched 45 new Kirkland products. One of them — caramelized blueberry cheesecake croissants — went viral online. That’s the kind of product that gets people in the door.
For 2026, the plan is to expand the Kirkland lineup even further while also moving production closer to where the products are sold. That’s partly a tariff-avoidance strategy — by sourcing and manufacturing domestically or regionally, Costco can sidestep some of the cost increases that come with importing goods. The result, ideally, is the same low prices Kirkland is known for, even when other brands are raising theirs.
New Deli Items and a Chocolate Mint Sundae
The deli section is getting two new ready-to-eat options in early 2026. The first is vacuum-sealed bags of precooked, flame-seared, grilled chipotle seasoned chicken in 2-pound kits. The second is Kirkland Signature braised beef with mashed potatoes in split trays, with about 3 pounds of food per package. Both are clearly aimed at the “I need dinner in 15 minutes” crowd, and honestly, braised beef with mashed potatoes for a Costco price sounds hard to beat.
On the sweeter side, a double chocolate mint sundae started appearing at some locations in February and is planned for wide release in March 2026, timed with St. Patrick’s Day. Also worth noting: during the first quarter earnings call, CFO Gary Millerchip dropped the stat that Costco sold 358,000 whole pizzas on Halloween alone — a 31% jump from the same day in 2024. That number is absolutely insane.
Executive Member Perks Are Actually Getting Better
When Costco bumped membership fees in 2024 — Executive went from $120 to $130, Business from $60 to $65 — people grumbled. Fair enough. But the company seems to be actually trying to justify the increase rather than just pocketing it.
Executive Members now get a $10 monthly credit on purchases over $150. They get early access to stores starting at 9 a.m. seven days a week — an hour before everyone else. They can get exclusive savings on new RVs through Camping World. And they can get additional savings on select employee health plans. The Costco Anywhere Visa Card from Citi also bumped gas pump cash back from 4% to 5%, with 3% at restaurants and on travel, 2% at Costco, and 1% everywhere else.
Pharmacy, Pay Raises, and the Digital Push
Costco Pharmacy is partnering with Navitus, a pharmacy benefit manager that acts as a middleman between insurance companies, pharmacies, and drug manufacturers. The goal is transparent pricing and fixed drug costs for Navitus clients. In a world where nobody can figure out what anything costs at a pharmacy until the bill shows up, this is the kind of thing that could make Costco Pharmacy a real destination beyond just picking up prescriptions while you’re already there for rotisserie chicken.
On the employee side, hourly rates are going up between $0.50 and $1 depending on pay scale, with the lowest-paid clerks making $21 per hour and the highest-paid making over $32. Some argue that doesn’t keep pace with inflation, but it’s still well above what most retail jobs pay.
And then there’s the digital side. Costco has historically been about as tech-forward as a concrete warehouse can be, which is to say not very. But they’re making real moves in 2026 — passwordless sign-in on the app, the ability to order custom bakery cakes and catering digitally instead of filling out paper forms, and personalized app experiences based on your shopping habits. They’ve started tracking sales driven by digital channels, which suggests they’re finally treating online and in-app shopping as more than an afterthought.
For a company that built its entire identity around the in-store experience, the digital push feels like a big deal. Not because Costco is suddenly becoming Amazon, but because they’re finally meeting members where they already are — on their phones, usually standing in the checkout line.
