Costco tips

Costco price adjustments, explained: how to claim the difference

If a price drops within 30 days of your purchase, you can claim the difference back. Here's what qualifies, what doesn't, and how to do it.

July 9, 2026 · 3 min read

Costco will refund the difference if something you bought drops in price, for almost any reason, within 30 days of your purchase. It's called a price adjustment, and it's one of the more generous policies in retail. It's also easy to forget about once the receipt disappears into a bag or a drawer.

What qualifies

• You bought it within the last 30 days. The window starts on your purchase date, not on whenever the current sale began. Once it closes, the saving is gone regardless of how far the price has dropped since.
• The current price is lower than what you paid, for almost any reason. A general markdown, the Instant Savings booklet, or an Online Deal all count. The reason for the drop doesn't usually matter, only that the price is genuinely lower right now.
• Even a clearance or manager's-markdown item. If you bought something already marked down and it drops again, that's still eligible. Costco doesn't carve these out the way some retailers do. One catch: clearance pricing (the .97 endings) is set per warehouse, so the adjustment is usually only good at the specific warehouse where you bought it, not at another location where the same item happens to be on clearance too.
• The item is still sold at Costco. There needs to be a current price to compare your receipt against.

The exact edges can vary a little by warehouse and by item, so treat this as the general shape of the policy rather than a guarantee for any specific purchase.

It's worth checking most on the purchases you stocked up on. A price drop on a case of something you bought in bulk adds up to more than the same drop on a single item. See our guide on buying in bulk without the waste for more on getting the most out of a big trip.

How to get one

In warehouse, bring your receipt to the Membership counter (some warehouses handle it at Returns instead) within the 30-day window. No receipt is usually fine too; Costco can typically look up the purchase using your membership number. Staff can generally verify the current price themselves, though it doesn't hurt to have it handy, a photo of the shelf tag or the current Instant Savings booklet works. The difference gets refunded to your original payment method.

For an online order, price adjustments on costco.com purchases are handled directly through Costco rather than at a warehouse counter. The exact steps can vary by region, so it's worth checking costco.com's current process before you go looking for a button that may not exist the way you expect.

The Executive 2% wrinkle

If you're an Executive member, a price adjustment lowers what you were charged for that item, which means it also very slightly lowers that purchase's contribution to your annual 2% reward. Not a reason to skip a price adjustment, just worth knowing so the numbers don't look off later.

The short version

A price adjustment is simple in practice: keep the receipt, notice when a price drops, and ask within 30 days. The hard part is remembering to check, not the policy itself.

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