BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings reports second quarter fiscal 2026 results before the market opens on Friday, August 21, 2026, closing the busiest week of the US retail earnings calendar. The company confirmed the date and an 8:00 a.m. Eastern conference call in a statement issued on July 23, 2026.
The print matters for a reason that has little to do with the club channel’s usual talking points about membership growth. BJ’s spent its first quarter converting tariff refund dollars into lower shelf prices, and its finance chief told analysts to expect more of those dollars in the quarter now being reported. That makes August 21 one of the cleanest available tests of what happens to retail gross margin when a tariff windfall is deliberately given away rather than banked.
The timing sharpens it further. The release lands two days after the first ever Section 338 tariffs on Canadian goods take effect, and one day after Walmart reports. By the time BJ’s management takes questions, the market will already hold five large retail datapoints from the same week.
In short
- When: BJ’s Wholesale Club (NYSE: BJ) reports Q2 fiscal 2026 before the open on Friday, August 21, 2026, with a conference call at 8:00 a.m. Eastern.
- The bar: consensus compiled by Zacks sits at roughly $1.16 in adjusted earnings per share on about $5.89 billion in total revenues, up about 1.8% and 9.5% respectively against the year-ago quarter.
- The number that decides it: comparable club sales excluding gasoline. Q1 came in at 1.5%, below the 2.0% to 3.0% full-year guidance range that management reaffirmed.
- The tariff angle: BJ’s used tariff refund proceeds to cut retail prices by about half a percentage point in Q1, a benefit the CFO sized at closer to $20 million, with more expected in Q2.
- The wider frame: the 50% Section 338 duty on Canadian goods starts August 19, two days before the release, and applies regardless of USMCA origin.
What BJ’s reports on August 21, and what the market expects
BJ’s operates a membership warehouse club model across the eastern United States, selling groceries, perishables, sundries and general merchandise in bulk alongside a large fuel business. Revenue arrives in two distinct streams: merchandise net sales, which carry thin margins, and membership fee income, which is close to pure profit and recognized ratably across the membership year.
The consensus figures for the quarter, as compiled by Zacks and published in the days before the release, point to adjusted earnings of about $1.16 per share on total revenues near $5.89 billion. Against the year-ago quarter that implies earnings growth of roughly 1.8% and revenue growth of about 9.5%. Estimate dispersion is worth noting: other estimate compilers carried materially lower revenue figures during the same window, so the headline “beat or miss” framing will depend on which consensus a given outlet cites.
The company has cleared consensus in each of its four most recent quarters, with the most recent print delivering a positive surprise of about 5.8%. Zacks carried a Rank of 3 (Hold) into the release with an Earnings ESP of about +0.39%, and noted the consensus estimate had drifted 0.09% higher over the preceding 30 days. That is a stable estimate picture rather than a company being repriced ahead of the event.
The webcast and replay are hosted on the company’s investor relations site, where the earnings release and supporting exhibit are posted before the call.
| Metric | Q2 FY2025 actual | Q2 FY2026 consensus or trend |
|---|---|---|
| Total revenues | $5,380.2m | about $5.89bn (+9.5%) |
| Net sales | $5,256.9m | not separately forecast |
| Membership fee income | $123.3m (+9.0%) | tracking near double digits |
| Adjusted EPS | $1.14 | about $1.16 (+1.8%) |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $303.9m (+8.0%) | not separately forecast |
| Comparable club sales, total | -0.3% | gasoline-inflated in Q1 |
| Comparable club sales, ex-gasoline | +2.3% | the swing factor |
| Digitally enabled comp growth | +34% | +28% in Q1 FY2026 |
Why the ex-gasoline comparable is the number that decides the print
Warehouse clubs sell fuel at deliberately thin margins to drive trips, which means the headline comparable sales figure moves with pump prices rather than with merchandising execution. Analysts therefore treat comparable club sales excluding gasoline as the real operating signal, and BJ’s guides on that basis. Anyone reading the August 21 release should go straight to that line.
The gap between Q1 and the annual guide
In the first quarter of fiscal 2026, the thirteen weeks ended May 2, 2026, total comparable club sales rose 6.3% while comparable club sales excluding gasoline rose just 1.5%. Management nonetheless reaffirmed full-year guidance for comparable club sales excluding gasoline to increase 2.0% to 3.0%. That combination sets up an arithmetic problem that the second quarter has to start solving.
On a simple unweighted basis, a 1.5% first quarter means the remaining three quarters need to average roughly 2.2% to reach the bottom of the range and roughly 3.5% to reach the top. Quarterly comps are not weighted equally in practice, and the fourth quarter carries the most sales, so the real requirement is softer than that arithmetic implies. Still, the direction of travel is clear: Q2 needs to print above Q1, and ideally above the 2.3% the company posted in the year-ago period.
An ex-gasoline comp in the low single digits with a “2” in front of it keeps the guide intact and the story boring. A number that starts with a “1” again would force management to either lean harder on the fourth quarter or soften the range, and would raise the question of whether the price investment funded by tariff refunds is buying traffic or simply giving away margin.
What gasoline is doing to the headline
The 4.8 percentage point gap between total and ex-gasoline comps in Q1 is unusually wide, and it explains why revenue grew close to 10% while the underlying merchandise business grew at a mid-single-digit or slower pace. Total revenues for Q1 were $5,661.5 million, up 9.9% year over year, with net sales up almost 10% to about $5.5 billion.
Fuel volume growth also reflects deliberate expansion. BJ’s opened one new club and six new gas stations in the first quarter alone, and the fuel network has been growing faster than the club count for several years. That makes the gasoline contribution structural rather than purely a price effect, but it does not change the analytical point: fuel dollars flatter the top line without adding much profit.
How tariff refunds turned into a pricing weapon
The most distinctive element of BJ’s recent reporting is what it chose to do with tariff refund money. On the May 22, 2026 earnings call, chief executive Bob Eddy said the company had used tariff refunds to help reduce overall retail prices by about half a percentage point. Chief financial officer Laura Felice sized the tariff benefit at roughly 50 basis points on merchandise margin, and said the dollar figure was closer to $20 million than the $30 million an analyst had suggested.
Eddy framed the decision in franchise terms rather than quarterly terms. “We will continue to use any source of gain that we can to really bring that value back to our members so that we can build the franchise for the long term,” he told analysts, according to trade press reporting of the call. Felice added that the company expected “a little bit of additional tariff dollars” in the quarter now being reported.
That guidance is the crux of the August 21 print. If additional refund dollars arrived and were again pushed into price, merchandise gross margin should look roughly flat to modestly better while comps benefit. If they arrived and were retained, margin expands and the price investment story weakens. The contrast with retailers that booked refunds straight to profit is instructive: our coverage of how Dillard’s booked a $37.2m tariff refund shows the same policy event producing a very different income statement outcome.
Where the refund dollars come from
The refunds trace to the Supreme Court’s February 20, 2026 decision, which held 6-3 in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts that tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were unlawful. Estimates cited in trade and legal analyses put the total collected under that authority above $160 billion, which is why the refund mechanics have become a live line item in retail earnings.
The distribution process has run through the Court of International Trade. In Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States, Judge Richard K. Eaton ordered Customs and Border Protection on March 4, 2026 to liquidate or reliquidate all entries that are not final without regard to IEEPA duties, an approach that would spare importers from filing individual protests. That order was subsequently suspended pending further proceedings, and CBP told the court in a March 19, 2026 declaration that the components of its claims portal were between 45% and 80% complete.
Why a club can pass refunds through faster than a department store
Three structural features let BJ’s convert a duty refund into a shelf price change quickly. The assortment is narrow, running a few thousand stock keeping units rather than hundreds of thousands, so a pricing decision touches a manageable number of items. Inventory turns fast on groceries and perishables, so a cost change reaches the shelf within weeks rather than seasons.
The third feature is the membership model itself. Because profit is anchored in fee income rather than merchandise markup, giving back merchandise margin is closer to marketing spend than to profit destruction. Own brands amplify the effect: Wellsley Farms covers food and Berkley Jensen covers general merchandise and sundries, and the company has said more than 90% of members buy from those labels, which means BJ’s controls the cost structure on a large share of what it discounts.
What happens when the refund stream dries up
Refunds are a one-off recovery of past duties, not a recurring source of funds. Once the IEEPA money is processed, a retailer that has spent it on price faces a choice between restoring prices, absorbing the margin, or finding savings elsewhere. Analysts will want to know how much refund benefit remains in the pipeline and what the plan is for the fourth quarter, when holiday pricing decisions are made.
The complicating factor is that the tariff regime did not disappear with the IEEPA ruling. It was rebuilt under other statutes, which means the refund tailwind and a fresh cost headwind are arriving in the same fiscal year.
How the 2026 tariff stack reaches a club shelf
The current landscape stacks several distinct authorities, each with its own scope and effective date. For a club retailer, the relevant exposure runs through general merchandise, apparel, seasonal goods and alcohol rather than through domestically sourced perishables, which is why the club channel is less tariff-sensitive than a home improvement or apparel chain but not immune.
| Action | Authority | Rate | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canadian goods, selected lines | Section 338, Tariff Act of 1930 | 50% additional | August 19, 2026 |
| 60 trading partners, forced-labor findings | Section 301 | 10% to 12.5% | July 24, 2026 |
| Brazilian goods | Section 301 | 25% additional | July 22, 2026 |
| Unmanned aircraft systems and components | Section 232 | up to 100% | September 3, 2026 |
| Patented and branded pharmaceuticals | Section 232 | up to 100% | September 29, 2026 for most importers |
| Low-value parcels under $800 | De minimis suspension | exemption withdrawn | permanent rule June 24, 2026 |
The de minimis line deserves a note, because it is the one item on that list that barely touches BJ’s. Clubs import in container loads and file formal entries as a matter of course, so the withdrawal of the $800 parcel exemption imposes no new process on them while raising landed costs for the direct-from-China competitors that undercut club pricing on general merchandise. The refund side of the same story is still unresolved: a trade court is weighing whether 330,000 importers can pursue IEEPA refunds as a class, which will determine how quickly the remaining money reaches balance sheets.
Why the Section 338 Canada tariff matters two days before the print
On July 20, 2026 the White House issued three proclamations invoking Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, imposing an additional 50% ad valorem duty on a broad range of Canadian-origin goods. Legal analyses describe this as the first time any president has used Section 338 to impose tariffs. The duties apply to goods entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:01 a.m. Eastern on August 19, 2026.
The proclamations cite Canadian conduct on motor vehicles, dairy and alcoholic beverages, but the annexes reach much further into consumer categories. Reported coverage includes wine, furniture, apparel, cosmetics, cement, plywood, seeds, fishing rods, hockey sticks, wigs and swimming pools. USTR has estimated the action covers close to $20 billion in annual imports, or roughly 5% of the value of all goods imported from Canada.
Two features make it awkward for retail sourcing teams. USMCA origin does not exempt covered goods, which breaks a planning assumption that has held since 2020, and the measure is not time limited in the way other recent tariff actions have been. Exclusions exist for energy, potash, fish, critical minerals, goods already subject to Section 232 duties, certain qualified civil aircraft and certain Chapter 98 reimports.
For BJ’s specifically the direct exposure is narrower than for a general merchandise chain, since the club’s Canadian-origin purchasing concentrates in a few categories rather than running across the assortment. The read-across from the off-price channel is the more useful signal: the same week, TJX reports on the morning the Section 338 duties take effect, and its commentary on closeout availability will indicate whether the new duty is creating distressed inventory or simply raising costs.
What membership fee income says about the franchise
Membership fee income is the metric that reveals whether a club is compounding. It grew 9.0% to $123.3 million in the year-ago second quarter, 10.9% to $129.8 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, and 9.9% to $132.4 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2026. Full-year fiscal 2025 fee income was $499.8 million, up 9.5%.
The company has attributed that run to three drivers: new member acquisition, retention, and higher-tier penetration across both new and existing clubs, plus the annual fee increase that took effect in January 2025 according to the fiscal 2025 results release. BJ’s reported membership growth of about 7% year over year in fiscal 2025 and a tenured member renewal rate of 90%. It crossed 8 million paid members during the second quarter of 2025 and reported more than 8 million as of January 31, 2026.
Because a fee increase flows into reported income gradually as memberships renew, the pricing benefit fades from the growth rate over roughly two years. That makes the fiscal 2026 quarters the point at which fee income growth has to come from volume and tier mix rather than from price. Listed pricing sits at $60 for the Club tier and $120 for Club+, with Club+ perks that now include two free same-day deliveries on eligible orders of at least $50 per membership period.
Digital is the other franchise metric worth reading. Digitally enabled comparable sales grew 34% in the year-ago quarter and 28% in Q1 fiscal 2026, which the company described as a two-year stacked growth rate of 63%. Deceleration in the growth rate against a much larger base is expected; a sharp break would not be.
How BJ’s stacks up against Costco and Sam’s Club
BJ’s is the smallest of the three US warehouse club operators by a wide margin. Analysis of Numerator data cited in trade press puts Costco at roughly 62% of US warehouse club sales, Sam’s Club at about 31%, and BJ’s at roughly 7%. That scale gap shapes both the opportunity and the risk in the August 21 print.
| Dimension | Costco | Sam’s Club (Walmart) | BJ’s Wholesale Club |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share of US club sales (estimated) | about 62% | about 31% | about 7% |
| Geographic profile | national and international | national | eastern US, 21 states |
| Club count reference | global fleet | national fleet | 255 clubs at Q2 FY2025 |
| Fuel network | extensive | extensive | 190 locations at Q2 FY2025 |
| Reporting cadence | monthly sales plus quarterly | inside Walmart segments | quarterly only |
| Own-brand labels | Kirkland Signature | Member’s Mark | Wellsley Farms, Berkley Jensen |
Being smallest has a compounding advantage in the current environment. A club with 7% share adding members in a market where grocery share is migrating toward the club channel can grow faster than the category without needing to take share from anyone in particular. Costco has reported low double-digit fresh comparable growth led by meat and bakery in its own recent quarter, and analysis of Numerator data has its grocery share moving from 7% to 8.4%.
The offsetting disadvantage is that BJ’s reports quarterly rather than monthly, so there is no interim sales tape to smooth expectations. Every three months the market gets one data release, which is part of why the ex-gasoline comp carries so much weight on the day. The pricing dynamic is the same one playing out in conventional grocery, where Kroger has held its outlook while price cuts squeeze margins, and the club format’s fee income gives BJ’s more room to run that trade than a supermarket has.
What five peer prints will have already told the market
BJ’s reports last in a week designed to answer whether US consumer spending is broadly weakening or simply rotating toward value. That sequencing is an advantage for readers and a risk for the company, because expectations will have been reset several times before Friday morning.
| Date | Company | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, August 18 | Home Depot | big-ticket demand and an interim CEO office |
| Wednesday, August 19 | Target | discretionary mix and traffic |
| Wednesday, August 19 | Lowe’s | professional customer demand |
| Wednesday, August 19 | TJX | closeout supply as Section 338 begins |
| Thursday, August 20 | Walmart | mass-market tariff pass-through |
| Thursday, August 20 | Ross Stores | value apparel and off-price margins |
| Friday, August 21 | BJ’s Wholesale Club | club channel trade-down and fee income |
Walmart is the most consequential comparison, both because Sam’s Club sits inside its results and because its scale makes it the reference point for tariff pass-through behavior. Our preview of how Walmart’s Q2 puts tariffs against a $186bn quarter sets out the pass-through question that BJ’s will be asked to answer 24 hours later.
The read-across is not mechanical. A strong Walmart grocery comp supports the trade-down thesis that helps BJ’s, but a strong Sam’s Club comp specifically indicates share competition inside the club channel. Investors will be parsing which of the two it is before BJ’s opens its call.
Five things to watch on the 8 a.m. call
- Ex-gasoline comparable club sales. The single number that determines whether the 2.0% to 3.0% annual guide stays credible after a 1.5% first quarter.
- Merchandise gross margin rate and the tariff contribution. Management quantified roughly 50 basis points and about $20 million in Q1. The Q2 figure, and how much of it went to price, is the margin story.
- Membership fee income growth. Whether it holds near the high single digits or low double digits now that the January 2025 fee increase has largely cycled through renewals.
- Guidance treatment. Reaffirmation of adjusted EPS of $4.40 to $4.60 would signal confidence in a second-half acceleration; the arithmetic implies roughly $2.14 to $2.34 across the back half after about $2.26 in the first two quarters.
- Section 338 and holiday cost commentary. The duties began two days earlier, and the fourth quarter assortment is already being priced.
Capital expenditure is the quieter item. Guidance of about $800 million funds new club openings and distribution network work including an ambient distribution center, against a plan of 12 new clubs in 2026 and a stated cadence of 25 to 30 openings every two years. Expansion is concentrated in Kentucky, Florida and Indiana, with the Florida fleet heading toward 46 clubs.
What it means for sellers, brands and marketplace operators
For consumer brands, BJ’s price investment behavior is a signal about how club buyers will handle cost increases in the fourth quarter. A retailer that has publicly committed to passing savings to members will be a difficult counterparty for a vendor arriving with a tariff-driven price increase request. Vendors should expect to be asked to document the duty component of any increase line by line.
For cross-border and marketplace sellers, the operative asymmetry is procedural. Formal entry, ten-digit classification and full duty payment are routine for a club importing in container loads, while the same requirements have become a structural cost for parcel-level sellers since the de minimis exemption was withdrawn. That gap widens the club channel’s price advantage on the general merchandise categories where direct-from-China competition was strongest.
For anyone modeling landed cost, the practical lesson from August 19 is about paperwork rather than strategy. Section 338 applies at entry regardless of USMCA certification, so a certificate of origin that has zeroed out duty since 2020 will not stop this one. Sourcing teams treating Canadian origin as tariff-safe need to reclassify before goods hit the water.
For investors, the question is narrower than the macro framing suggests. BJ’s has grown fee income at high single to low double digits for several quarters and has an intact expansion pipeline. The uncertainty is whether the merchandise business can produce a 2% or better ex-gasoline comp while its own management gives away half a point of price.
Frequently asked questions
When does BJ’s Wholesale Club report Q2 fiscal 2026 earnings?
BJ’s Wholesale Club Holdings releases second quarter fiscal 2026 results before the market opens on Friday, August 21, 2026, and hosts a conference call the same day at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. The company confirmed both in a statement issued July 23, 2026, and the webcast plus a replay are available through its investor relations site.
What are analysts expecting from BJ’s Q2 fiscal 2026?
Consensus compiled by Zacks points to adjusted earnings of about $1.16 per share on total revenues of roughly $5.89 billion, implying growth of about 1.8% and 9.5% against the year-ago quarter. Other estimate compilers carried lower revenue figures in the same window, so reported beat or miss framing may vary by source.
Why does BJ’s report comparable sales excluding gasoline?
Fuel is sold at deliberately thin margins to drive trips, so the headline comparable figure moves with pump prices rather than with merchandising performance. In the first quarter of fiscal 2026 total comparable club sales rose 6.3% while the ex-gasoline figure rose only 1.5%, a gap of 4.8 percentage points that shows how much distortion fuel can introduce.
How did BJ’s use tariff refunds?
On the May 22, 2026 call, chief executive Bob Eddy said the company used tariff refunds to help cut overall retail prices by about half a percentage point. Chief financial officer Laura Felice sized the benefit at roughly 50 basis points of merchandise margin, or closer to $20 million than $30 million, and said BJ’s expected a little additional tariff money in the following quarter.
Where do the tariff refunds come from?
They follow the Supreme Court’s February 20, 2026 decision holding 6-3 that tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were unlawful, with estimates of more than $160 billion collected under that authority. Distribution has run through the Court of International Trade, and Customs and Border Protection has been building a claims portal that it reported was 45% to 80% complete in a March 19, 2026 declaration.
Do the Section 338 tariffs on Canada affect BJ’s?
Indirectly and in specific categories. The additional 50% duty takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on August 19, 2026 and reaches consumer goods including wine, furniture, apparel, cosmetics and sporting goods, but a club’s Canadian-origin purchasing is concentrated rather than spread across the assortment. USMCA origin does not exempt covered goods, so any Canadian sourcing needs to be reclassified.
What is BJ’s full-year fiscal 2026 guidance?
Management reaffirmed guidance at the first quarter for comparable club sales excluding gasoline to rise 2.0% to 3.0%, adjusted earnings per share of $4.40 to $4.60, and capital expenditure of approximately $800 million covering new clubs and distribution network investment including an ambient distribution center.
How big is BJ’s compared with Costco and Sam’s Club?
Analysis of Numerator data cited in trade press puts Costco at roughly 62% of US warehouse club sales, Sam’s Club at about 31%, and BJ’s at roughly 7%. BJ’s operated 255 clubs and 190 fuel locations across 21 states as of its second quarter fiscal 2025 report, making it a regional operator in the eastern United States rather than a national one.
How many members does BJ’s have?
The company crossed 8 million paid members during the second quarter of 2025 and reported more than 8 million as of January 31, 2026. It also reported membership growth of about 7% year over year in fiscal 2025 and a tenured member renewal rate of 90%.