Costco is owned by its public shareholders and has no controlling owner. Its proxy statement lists only two holders above 5% as of 7 November 2025: Vanguard with 9.79% and BlackRock with 7.83%, both largely on behalf of index funds and clients. Costco has a single class of common stock, and its directors and executive officers as a group held less than 1%.
At the November 2025 record date Costco had 443,957,682 shares of common stock outstanding, which were all of its voting securities. Each share carries one vote.
02
Two holders above 5%
The proxy lists The Vanguard Group with 43,455,368 shares (9.79%) and BlackRock with 34,781,929 shares (7.83%), based on their 13F filings in November 2025.
03
Insiders hold little
All directors and executive officers as a group (23 people) beneficially owned 460,270 shares, less than 1% of the class.
04
Many owners of record
On 29 September 2026 Costco had 10,703 stockholders of record; most investors hold through brokers and funds, so the real number of beneficial owners is far larger.
What changed in 2025-26
A record year in fiscal 2026
In the 52 weeks to 30 August 2026, total revenue was $303.2 billion and net income $9.2 billion. Membership fees reached $5.9 billion, up 11%, helped by new sign-ups, the fee increase in the US and Canada from 1 September 2024 and upgrades to Executive membership (Costco 10-K, fiscal 2026).
More members, high renewals
Costco ended fiscal 2026 with 84.1 million paid members, 42.3 million of them Executive members, and renewal rates of 92.3% in the US and Canada and 89.8% worldwide.
Cash returned to owners
Dividends declared in fiscal 2026 totalled $5.54 per share, and buybacks continued under a $4 billion authorisation that expires in January 2027.
AI on the risk list
Costco’s fiscal 2026 10-K says it must keep pace with artificial intelligence and warns that AI has sped up the scale of cybersecurity threats and carries risks to the accuracy of outputs given to members and employees.
Costco's disclosed shareholders
The Vanguard Group
Stake43,455,368 shares (9.79%)
Source and dateCostco proxy, as of 7 Nov 2025
BlackRock
Stake34,781,929 shares (7.83%)
Source and dateCostco proxy, as of 7 Nov 2025
Directors and executive officers (23 people)
Stake460,270 shares (under 1%)
Source and dateCostco proxy, as of 7 Nov 2025
All shares outstanding
Stake443,957,682 common shares
Source and dateCostco proxy, record date Nov 2025
What it means for you
Investors: no founder or parent company can overrule the board, so governance runs through the annual vote; read the proxy each December.
Index-fund savers: if you own a broad US equity fund, you very likely own a small slice of Costco through Vanguard or BlackRock.
Operators: Costco's model works because owners accept thin merchandise margins in exchange for membership fees and steady growth.
Watch renewal rates and Executive membership penetration in each 10-K; they say more about Costco's health than ownership changes do.
The Business Engineer lens
Costco is owned by almost everyone through index funds, which leaves management free to run a long-term membership model that resists short-term margin pressure. The Business Engineer view: in retail’s AI era, the moat is the paid, renewing relationship with members, not the ownership structure.
Costco is a widely held public company. Its only holders above 5% are Vanguard (9.79%) and BlackRock (7.83%), according to its proxy, as of 7 November 2025.
Does BlackRock own Costco?
BlackRock held 7.83% of Costco's shares as of 7 November 2025, mostly on behalf of funds and clients. It does not control the company.
Do Costco's founders still own it?
Costco began operations in 1983 in Seattle. Neither founder appears among the holders above 5% in the 2025 proxy, and all directors and executives together held under 1%.
Does Costco have different share classes?
No. Its common stock is its only class of voting securities, with one vote per share.
The complete explainer, cleaned up and reformatted for mobile.
In short
Costco is widely held, with no controlling owner. According to its December 2025 proxy, only two holders own more than 5%: Vanguard (9.79%) and BlackRock (7.83%), both mostly on behalf of index funds. The rest of its 444 million shares are held by other funds and individual investors.
Correction (10 Oct 2026): an earlier version of this page listed State Street, PRIMECAP and Fidelity with exact stakes and undated market-cap and employee figures. Costco’s proxy statement lists only Vanguard (9.79%) and BlackRock (7.83%) above 5%.
How we source: figures on this page come from the company’s own filings (SEC 10-K, 10-Q, prospectus and earnings releases, or its annual report), with the period stated next to each number; outside estimates appear only labelled, with their source and date. Last refreshed October 2026. Our methodology.
Costco Wholesale Corporation is a public company with a single class of common stock and no controlling shareholder. Its proxy statement lists the holders of more than 5% as of 7 November 2025: The Vanguard Group with 43.5 million shares (9.79%) and BlackRock with 34.8 million (7.83%). Nobody else crosses 5%.
Vanguard and BlackRock are asset managers. They hold most of these shares on behalf of index funds and their clients, which is why they appear as the largest holders of almost every large US company. In practice, Costco is owned by millions of fund investors and individual shareholders.
What about the founders?
Costco was founded in 1983 by Jim Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman. Neither the founders’ families nor current executives appear among the 5% holders.
Costco ownership: timeline
1983
First Costco warehouse
Opened in Seattle by Jim Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman.
With no controlling owner, Costco’s direction is set by its board and management, and its shareholders are mostly long-term, passive funds. That fits its model: a membership business that keeps prices low and earns much of its profit from annual fees, which only works if management can resist short-term pressure to raise prices or margins.
What to watch
Changes in the 5% holders in Costco’s annual proxy
Membership renewal rates in Costco’s quarterly reports
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur, HackerNoon and Search Engine People. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
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