COST

Costco Wholesale Corp.

DOUBTFUL — METHODS DIFFERstock

Is COST Halal?

General retail and membership warehouses can be permissible, but public reporting cannot reproduce a screened revenue allocation for alcohol and other product and service categories.

What You Should Know

Costco's May 2026 debt, liquidity and receivables ratios pass examined total-assets screens. Its filing does not separately disclose alcohol, tobacco, pork, non-halal meat, pharmacy, financial-service or other screened revenue.

⚠️ Concerns

  • Alcohol, tobacco, pork and non-halal meat revenue is not disclosed
  • Broad merchandise categories cannot establish a prohibited-revenue percentage
  • Membership fees do not replace revenue-based product screening
  • Supplier, food-safety, labor, animal-welfare and environmental review

Current quantitative Sharia screen

Based on 10-Q figures for the period ended 2026-05-10; calculated 2026-07-13.

USD · millions
Interest-bearing debt / assets
6.58%Within limit
Below 33.333% under FTSE Yasaar

5,684 / 86,430

Cash + interest-bearing securities / assets
23.14%Within limit
Below 33.333% under FTSE Yasaar

19,996 / 86,430

Receivables + cash / assets
26.26%Within limit
Below 50% under FTSE Yasaar

22,696 / 86,430

FTSE Yasaar
v4.6, February 2026
Financial
Incomplete
Overall
Incomplete

Debt is 6.58%, identifiable liquidity is 23.14%, and receivables plus cash is 26.26%, below the examined limits. Gross interest income is not separately disclosed, so the income screen and overall screen remain incomplete.

MSCI Islamic (total-assets series)
October 2024 methodology
Financial
Pass
Overall
Incomplete

Debt, cash plus identifiable interest-bearing securities and receivables plus cash are below the examined total-assets limits. This is not an index-membership claim; business-activity revenue remains undisclosed.

Malaysia SAC financial ratios
single 5% activity benchmark adopted November 2025
Financial
Pass
Overall
Incomplete

Identifiable conventional cash and interest-bearing instruments and conservatively defined interest-bearing debt are below 33% of total assets. This is a calculation against SAC ratios, not an official SAC classification of a U.S.-listed security; screened business revenue is unavailable.

Market-cap denominator methods
MSCI M-Series, S&P and Dow Jones methods differ
Financial
Not calculated
Overall
Not calculated

A properly licensed and reproducible 24- or 36-month issuer market-cap history is not yet stored, so these methods are not estimated from a current spot price.

Business-activity disclosure

Costco operates membership warehouses and e-commerce sites selling a broad range of food, non-food and ancillary products. Much of general retail, distribution and membership activity can be permissible; permissibility cannot be inferred for the full consolidated merchandise mix.

Limitation: Public reporting does not provide a reproducible revenue numerator for alcohol, tobacco, pork, non-halal meat, pharmacy, financial services or other categories that may be material to a chosen screen. Food-category revenue or membership-fee profitability cannot replace that numerator.

Purification

Gross interest income and screened operating-revenue categories are not separately disclosed. No fixed purification percentage is prescribed from the reported other-income line or a merchandise estimate.

Inputs, assumptions and primary sources
  • Interest-bearing debt uses the reported 5,684 total long-term debt before unamortized discounts and issuance costs. The company also reports 96 of short-term bank-credit-facility borrowings, but this is not included because it is presented separately and the methodology input consistently uses stated long-term debt.
  • Cash uses 18,946. Identifiable interest-bearing securities use 1,050 of short-term investments: government and agency securities plus certificates of deposit.
  • Receivables use the reported 3,750 net balance. Quarterly revenue uses 69,154 net sales plus 1,373 membership fees.
  • Other income of 123 combines interest expense, interest income and other items, so gross interest income is not inferred.
  • The filing disaggregates sales into Foods and Sundries, Non-Foods, Fresh Foods, and Warehouse Ancillary and Other Businesses, but does not separately disclose alcohol, tobacco, pork, non-halal meat, pharmacy, financial-service or other screened revenue.

This is a reproducible financial screen, not a fatwa. A failed total-assets screen can coexist with a pass under a market-cap methodology. ZakatInvest keeps the qualitative assessment separate so numerical thresholds do not erase material context.

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