Costco Wholesale Corporation: would “debt to equity stays at or below 1.0” have held?
It would never have broken. Debt to equity stays at or below 1.0 held in every one of the 8 fiscal years it could be tested in.
On the newest filing, FY2026 lodged 2026-10-07, it stands +0.72 from the line, at 0.28.
Year by year, against the filings
| Fiscal year | Debt to equity | On the year | Against 1.0 | Clear by | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2016 | n/a | n/a | not filed | n/a | 2016-10-12 10-K 0000909832-16-000032 |
| FY2017 | n/a | n/a | not filed | n/a | 2017-10-18 10-K 0000909832-17-000014 |
| FY2018 | n/a | n/a | not filed | n/a | 2018-10-26 10-K 0000909832-18-000013 |
| FY2019 | 0.48 | n/a | held | +0.52 | 2019-10-11 10-K 0000909832-19-000019 |
| FY2020 | 0.61 | +0.13 | held | +0.39 | 2020-10-07 10-K 0000909832-20-000017 |
| FY2021 | 0.64 | +0.03 | held | +0.36 | 2021-10-06 10-K 0000909832-21-000014 |
| FY2022 | 0.44 | -0.20 | held | +0.56 | 2022-10-05 10-K 0000909832-22-000021 |
| FY2023 | 0.35 | -0.09 | held | +0.65 | 2023-10-11 10-K 0000909832-23-000042 |
| FY2024 | 0.42 | +0.07 | held | +0.58 | 2024-10-09 10-K 0000909832-24-000049 |
| FY2025 | 0.34 | -0.08 | held | +0.66 | 2025-10-08 10-K 0000909832-25-000101 |
| FY2026 | 0.28 | -0.06 | held | +0.72 | 2026-10-07 10-K 0000909832-26-000093 |
What the series does
- Largest single-year move. FY2021 to FY2022, from 0.64 to 0.44, a change of -0.20, filed 2022-10-05 under 0000909832-22-000021. The filing is the place to read why; this reports the size and nothing about the cause. The average move between filed years, in either direction, is 0.09, which is the scale of ordinary movement to judge a threshold against.
- Closest to the line. FY2021, at 0.64 against 1.0, which is 0.36 clear of it. A threshold set anywhere inside that gap would have produced a different answer for this company.
- Span of the filed series. Lowest in FY2026 at 0.28, highest in FY2021 at 0.64, averaging 0.44 across the years that could be tested.
- Where the answer would flip. Any line at or above 0.64 would have held in every year that could be tested. Anything below it would have broken in FY2021 at the latest.
- First filed year to newest. FY2019 at 0.48, FY2026 at 0.28, a net -0.20 across the window on file. The path between them is the column above, not a straight line between these two.
8 of 11 filed years could be tested. A missing figure counts as neither held nor broken.
How demanding 1.0 is
Against the 2320 companies holding this figure on 2026-10-21, that line sits between the p50 mark of 0.57 and the p75 mark of 1.28, which says how demanding it is and nothing about where to set it.
The threshold is the reader's to choose. This is what one would have done, not advice. Where this line comes from
What this page leaves out
Evaluated over 11 filed fiscal years, FY2016 to FY2026. The figure could be computed in 8 of them; a year without it counts as neither held nor broken. Accounts filed before this company began tagging its statements in XBRL are not machine-readable and are outside this page. No share price is involved in any figure here, so nothing on this page is limited by the depth of our price archive.
Filings get mis-tagged and restated, so check a figure against the submission it names. Coverage for a company you own.
Related
- Why Costco Wholesale Corporation's debt to equity is published at several different values
- Ask this about your own company, at your own number
- Microsoft Corporation against the same line. It would have broken in 2 of 10.
- Operating margin stays at or above 15 percent, on the same filings. It would have broken in 11 of 11.