If you’re one of the 130-something million Costco cardholders in the world, your warehouse experience is about to shift in some pretty meaningful ways. Not the kind of changes where they swap one brand of tortilla chips for another — we’re talking structural stuff that affects how you shop, what you pay, and whether your freeloading neighbor can still sneak a $1.50 hot dog without a membership card.
Costco’s leadership has been busy. Between earnings calls, new store blueprints, and pharmacy partnerships, CEO Ron Vachris and his team have laid out an ambitious 2026. Some of these changes are already rolling out. Others are coming in the next few months. Here’s what matters most.
The Food Court Freeloader Era Is Officially Over
Let’s start with the one that’s going to sting for a certain type of person — you know exactly who I’m talking about. The friend who doesn’t have a Costco membership but somehow always has a churro in hand. The college kid who figured out you could walk in through the exit and grab a slice of pizza without anyone blinking.
That era is done. Costco is installing membership card scanners at food court kiosks across the country. These are the same type of digital scanners that became standard at warehouse entrances over the past couple of years. Now, before you can even place an order at the food court terminal, you’ll need to scan your card.
A Reddit user spotted the scanners at their local store back in November 2025 — hooked up but not yet turned on. A food court employee confirmed what they were for. The card readers are being installed right beside the payment pin pad at each touchscreen kiosk. At warehouses with indoor food courts, non-members have been sneaking in through the exit for years. That’s about to get a lot harder.
And here’s the thing — this change isn’t just about keeping freeloaders out. There’s actually an upside for paying members. Some members are hopeful (and there’s good reason to be) that food court purchases will start counting toward Executive Member cash back rewards. If that happens, your hot dog and pizza habit could actually put money back in your pocket at the end of the year. That would be a genuine perk that makes the $130 Executive membership feel even more justified.
For what it’s worth, Costco’s food court isn’t slowing down. During the first quarter earnings call, CFO Gary Millerchip mentioned record pizza sales on Halloween — 358,000 whole pies in a single day, up 31% from the year before. The food court is a money-printing machine, and Costco is finally locking the gates around it.
A Pharmacy Pricing Overhaul That Actually Makes Sense
If you’ve ever looked at a pharmacy receipt and felt like you needed a decoder ring to figure out what you actually paid and why, Costco’s new pharmacy partnership is built for you.
Starting January 1, 2026, Costco Pharmacy teamed up with a company called Navitus, a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM). Now, PBMs are usually the shadowy middlemen in the drug pricing world — they sit between insurance companies, pharmacies, and drug manufacturers, and they’re often blamed for making prescription costs confusing and inflated. Navitus is different. They operate on what’s called a cost-plus pricing model.
Here’s what that means in plain English: instead of a price that’s been twisted through rebates, hidden fees, and backroom deals, you see exactly what the medication costs Costco, plus a straightforward markup on top. That’s it. No mystery math. No wondering why your copay changed for the third time this year.
Richard Stephens, senior vice president of Costco Pharmacy, said they’re proud to be Navitus’s first network pharmacy partner, delivering what he called “highly competitive, fully auditable drug costs.” The key word there is auditable. That means the numbers can be checked. They can be verified. There’s accountability baked into the pricing — which is basically the opposite of how the rest of the pharmacy industry works.
One important note: this partnership won’t override your existing health care plan. If you already have prescription coverage through your insurance, that doesn’t disappear. The Navitus pricing applies specifically to Navitus clients filling prescriptions at Costco pharmacies. But the direction this sets is huge. If it works — and there’s every reason to think it will — it puts pressure on the rest of the pharmacy world to be more transparent.
Americans spend more on prescription drugs than any other country on Earth. Anything that strips away the confusion and shows people what they’re actually paying for is a step worth paying attention to.
35 New Warehouses And A Standalone Gas Station
Costco opened 27 new stores in 2025, just shy of its goal of 29. For 2026, the company is swinging even harder — 35 new warehouses are in the pipeline, which would bring the total store count to around 649. Five of those 35 are relocations rather than brand-new markets, but even so, the pace of growth is aggressive.
The first to open in 2026 was West Roseville, California, which launched on January 23 to lines that stretched around the building. The local mayor, Krista Bernasconi, pointed out the sales tax revenue the store would bring to fund city services like police, fire, and roads. That’s the thing about a Costco opening — it’s a civic event in a lot of towns.
Three more openings followed in March: Liberty Hill, Texas; Forney, Texas; and South St. George, Utah. Beyond the U.S., a massive 200,000-square-foot store in Monterrey, Mexico is set to open, making it the largest Costco warehouse in Latin America.
But here’s the move that’s caught the most attention: Costco is building its first-ever standalone gas station in Mission Viejo, California, expected to open in spring 2026. No warehouse attached — just a 40-pump fueling station. You’ll still need a membership card to use it. For a lot of Costco members, gas prices alone justify the annual fee. Costco’s per-gallon prices consistently run well below the competition, and in California, where gas prices make national news, a members-only mega pump station is going to be very popular.
There’s a strategy behind the relocations, too. High-volume stores are being moved to larger properties with bigger parking lots and expanded gas stations. The old locations don’t just sit empty, though — Costco is converting some of them into Business Centers, which are alternative warehouses geared toward restaurants, offices, and other commercial buyers. It’s smart. Instead of abandoning real estate, they repurpose it for a different customer base.
A Few More Things Worth Knowing
While the three changes above are the headline grabbers, there’s a handful of smaller shifts happening at Costco that are worth putting on your radar.
First, employees are getting a raise. As part of a deal finalized in March 2025, hourly Costco workers will see their pay increase by 50 cents to $1 per hour in March 2026, with another bump coming in 2027. That puts the lowest-paid clerks at $21 per hour, and the highest-paid hourly employees will clear $32 per hour. Some have argued it doesn’t keep up with inflation, but it’s still well above what most retail workers earn in this country.
Second, Costco’s digital game is getting a serious upgrade. The Costco app saw a 40% jump in traffic during the first quarter, and the company is now testing prescan technology in select locations. Employees with mobile scanners target carts in the small-to-medium range and scan your items before you even reach the register. Early results show checkout speeds improving by up to 20%. The company is also rolling out digital ordering for custom cakes and catering through the app — no more handwriting an order form and driving it to the store.
Third, Costco is shifting more Kirkland Signature production to local sources. The strategy cuts carbon footprint, but more importantly for shoppers, it helps dodge tariff costs. Costco already adjusted supply chains in Mexico and Canada to avoid tariff exposure in 2025, and that approach is expanding domestically with regional buyers sourcing local and specialty products. The Kirkland line also added 45 new products in the final months of 2025, including those viral caramelized blueberry cheesecake croissants that blew up on social media.
And for Costco Visa cardholders, the cash back rate at Costco gas pumps just bumped to 5%, up from 4%. That might sound incremental, but if you’re filling up a truck or SUV every week, it adds up fast over a year.
What This All Adds Up To
Costco’s whole model has always been simple: keep things cheap, keep things no-frills, and keep members loyal enough to renew every year. That renewal rate currently sits at 90%, which is absurd for any subscription-based business. But the company isn’t coasting on it. Every change happening in 2026 — the food court scanners, the pharmacy transparency, the aggressive expansion, the faster checkout tech — is designed to make the membership feel more valuable, not less.
The biggest takeaway? Costco is tightening the perimeter. If you’re a member, you’re getting more. If you’re not a member, you’re getting less access than ever before. The $1.50 hot dog is still out there. You just need to prove you belong before you can have one.
