Costco Wholesale Corporation Announces Plans to Close Costco Home Stores

ISSAQUAH, WA--(Marketwire - April 2, 2009) - Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) today announced plans to close on July 3 its two Costco Home stores, located in Kirkland, Washington, and Tempe, Arizona.

Jim Sinegal, Costco's CEO, stated: "Costco Home has been a valuable experiment for us. We provided a competitive home furnishings alternative to our members in two locations and learned a great deal about home furnishings in the process. The current economic slowdown and resulting weakness in the home furnishings business in particular have led us to conclude that the single-format Costco Home concept does not fit into our long-term expansion plans. As the current lease obligations near an end, it makes sense for us to make this difficult decision now. This decision affects only the two Costco Home locations. Costco is planning no other closures (except for relocation of warehouse facilities), and will continue to offer home furnishings at all other warehouse locations. The closure of the two Costco Home locations will have no significant impact on the operations or financial results of the Company."

Employees at the Costco Home locations will be offered the opportunity to transfer to other local Costco warehouses. Costco Home employees at the Issaquah home offices will also be offered other opportunities within the Company. We expect no layoffs as a result of these closings.

Costco currently operates 554 warehouses, including 407 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 76 in Canada, 21 in the United Kingdom, six in Korea, five in Taiwan, eight in Japan and 31 in Mexico. The Company also operates Costco Online, an electronic commerce web site, at www.costco.com and at www.costco.ca in Canada.

Contact Information: CONTACTS: Costco Wholesale Corporation Richard Galanti, 425/313-8203 Patrick Callans, 425/313-6563