Costco Store Numbers Breakdown, Ownership, and Floor Space

Grocery shopping. Pexels Images.

This article presents a number of store properties of Costco, consisting of number of stores, store ownership, and operating floor space.

We will look at Costco’s store numbers worldwide, store ownership (who owns the building and/or land), location breakdown by region, and operating floor space breakdown by region.

Let’s look at the numbers!

For the other statistics of Costco, you may find more resources in these pages:

Same Store Sales

• Costco comparable and same store sales by segment,

Revenue

• Costco revenue by category: foods, non-foods, fresh foods, etc.,
• Costco revenue by category: merchandise sales and membership fees,
• Costco revenue by region: U.S., Canada, and International,

Other Revenue Streams

• Costco gas station numbers and gasoline revenue,
• Costco e-commerce revenue and e-commerce comparable sales,

Profit Margin & Financial Standing

• Costco profit margin breakdown: U.S., Canada, and International,
• Costco financial position: debt due vs liquidity,

Comparison with Walmart

• Costco vs Walmart: profit margin,
• Costco vs Walmart: profit breakdown by segment,
• Costco vs Walmart: total stores and average store size,

Other Statistics

• Costco headcount analysis: total employees and employee by region,
• Costco total locations globally and location breakdown by country,

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Definitions

To help readers understand the content better, the following terms and glossaries have been provided.

Operating Floor Space:Costco’s operating floor space refers to the total square footage of all active warehouse locations globally, calculated by multiplying the number of open warehouses by the average warehouse size at any given point in time. It serves as a measure of the company’s physical retail capacity and is a key operational metric for assessing sales productivity, capital deployment, and expansion progress.

In Costco’s context, each warehouse operates on a standardized format — averaging approximately 144,000 to 147,000 square feet throughout the 2014–2025 period — encompassing the selling floor, ancillary departments such as food courts, optical, pharmacy, and tire centers, as well as back-of-house storage and receiving areas.

Unlike conventional retailers that report selling square footage separately from total floor area, Costco reports total warehouse square footage as its primary space metric, reflecting the integrated nature of its layout where storage and selling functions often overlap within the same physical footprint.

Total operating floor space is therefore a straightforward function of unit count and average warehouse size, and its near-flat per-unit trajectory over the past decade underscores Costco’s deliberate commitment to format consistency — prioritizing operational standardization and supply chain efficiency over store-level customization.

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Insight & Summary of Costco’s Store Numbers, Ownership, and Operating Floor Space

The following analysis consolidates the trends observed across Costco’s store numbers worldwide, store ownership, and operating floor space for the 2014–2025 period.

• Costco exercises a highly capital-intensive, defensively structured real estate strategy that heavily favors direct ownership. Between 2023 and 2025, the company owned the land and buildings for an overwhelming 79.0% of its global footprint (averaging 702 owned properties out of 888 total locations).

• This structural anomaly within the retail sector profoundly insulates Costco’s cost structure from macroeconomic rent escalations, secures long-term asset appreciation, and provides maximum flexibility for site expansion or redevelopment. The leasing of land or buildings is strictly utilized as a tactical lever—maintained at a steady 21.0% mix — to penetrate high-barrier or premium global markets where direct acquisition is structurally unfeasible.

• Geographically, the portfolio is shifting methodically toward international diversification. While the United States and Puerto Rico anchor the ecosystem with an average of 611 stores and 91 million square feet of operating floor space (dominating roughly 69% of the global mix), International (excluding Canada) is the fastest-expanding operational wing. International operations now command an average of 19.0% of total store counts and 18.6% of the global floor space mix, capturing critical new demographic cohorts.

• Furthermore, Costco’s logistics footprint demonstrates extreme operational efficiency. Dedicated distribution and logistics space averages 32 million square feet, representing just under a quarter (24.8%) of total operating space. This lean ratio confirms that Costco’s supply chain relies on high inventory velocity and cross-docking precision rather than bloated, static warehousing.

The table below combines Costco’s location results, store ownership results, and operating floor space results into a single view for the latest three fiscal years.

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U.S., Canada, International – Store Numbers and Mix

For the definition of the Costco’s operating floor space, you may refer to this section: operating floor space.

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Owned or Leased Building and/or Land

For the definition of the Costco’s operating floor space, you may refer to this section: operating floor space.

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U.S., Canada, International – Floor Space and Mix

For the definition of the Costco’s operating floor space, you may refer to this section: operating floor space.

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Distribution and Logistics – Floor Space and Mix

For the definition of the Costco’s operating floor space, you may refer to this section: operating floor space.

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References and Credits

1. All financial figures presented were obtained and referenced from Costco’s quarterly and annual reports published on the respective investor relations pages: Costco Investor Relations.

2. Pexels Images.

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Disclosure

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist us in writing some of the text in this article. However, the data is directly obtained from original sources and meticulously cross-checked by our editors multiple times to ensure its accuracy and reliability.

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