Costco Hikes Membership Fees

(RTTNews) - Retail giant Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) Thursday announced that it will increase annual membership fees by $5 for U.S. and Canada Goldstar, Business, and Business add-on members, effective June 1, 2017.

The U.S. and Canada Goldstar, Business and Business add-on members will pay now have to pay an annual fee of $60 with the increase. Executive Memberships in the U.S. and Canada will increase from $110 to $120. The maximum annual 2% reward associated with the Executive Membership will increase from $750 to $1,000.

The fee increases will impact around 35 million members, roughly half of Executive Members. It is the first increase since 2011.

Costco currently operates 728 warehouses, including 508 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 94 in Canada, 37 in Mexico, 28 in the United Kingdom, 25 in Japan, 13 in Korea, 13 in Taiwan, eight in Australia and two in Spain.

Costco is a membership warehouse club, which requires consumers to pay an annual fee to shop in its stores.