Any shareholder of Costco Wholesale (COST +0.18%) will soon have a dividend payout to look forward to. On Nov. 13, it will pay $1.47 per share to shareholders of record at the close of business on Oct. 30.
Not known as a pure income stock, Costco’s dividend only yields 0.5%, so it will take a lot of shares to build a steady revenue stream. We’ll take a look at how many are needed to receive $250 every quarter, or $1,000 a year, in Costco dividends, as well as why the stock may be worth considering as an investment beyond its quarterly dividend payouts.
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Earning $1,000 a year from Costco’s dividend
For a hypothetical example of how many shares it would take to receive dividend payouts from Costco, we’ll use the Nov. 13 payout of $1.47 as a baseline. That’s because Costco paid that same dividend amount in May and August earlier in 2026.
To receive approximately $1,000 in dividends each year, an investor would need to own 170 shares. At an opening price of $1,016 on Oct. 23, that would require purchasing slightly under $173,000 worth of stock.
Hearing that, it may sound like it’s worth ruling out Costco as a dividend stock, since the same investment could go a long way in other income stocks. That’s fair, but there’s a reason you shouldn’t rule Costco out completely as an investable opportunity.
COST Costco Wholesale
$1,005.16+$1.84 (+0.18%)
NASDAQ · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/26/26
Three ways to make money from Costco stock
I’ve always liked Costco as an investment because it offers three ways for shareholders to profit, boosting the total return potential. The first is through stock price appreciation. Over the last five years, Costco’s stock price has climbed 108%, while the S&P 500 is up 67% over the same period. The outperformance can continue as Costco opens more stores, generates more revenue, and converts sales into profits, which can lead to greater investor enthusiasm and a rising stock price. For fiscal 2026, Costco ended the year with 939 warehouses and plans to boost that total to 967 by the end of fiscal 2027.
The second way shareholders profit from Costco is through its special dividend. There isn’t a set time frame for when it’s paid out or a set amount, but its last special dividend payout of $15 per share was paid in 2024, and $10 per share was paid before that in 2020.
Finally, there’s also that quarterly dividend we talked about earlier. On its own, it may not seem significant. But when you stack that on top of stock price appreciation and a special dividend, total returns for long-term investors can start to add up. Value investors may not like looking at the company’s traditional metrics, with Costco’s forward price-to-earnings ratio at 39.8. But with its revenue-boosting potential through new store openings and multiple ways to reward shareholders, it’s a stock I’d still consider owning for the long haul, even if it appears a bit rich.
