Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) will hike its quarterly dividend by 13.9% to 90 cents per share in 2022. This follows last year's 12.9 percent to 79 cents per share by the membership warehouse giant. Costco also paid a special cash dividend of $10.00 per share in 2020. This new 2022 COST dividend increase marks 18 straight years of dividend increases by Costco.

The next dividend is payable May 13, 2022, to shareholders of record at the close of business on April 29, 2022. The new annual dividend rate of $3.60 for Costco yields 0.6% at a stock price of $594.

If this new dividend hike is included Costco's estimated regular annual dividend payment to shareholders jumps to $1.6 billion. The average dividend growth rate based on the last five years is 12.5 percent (annually) for Costco Wholesale.

Costco Wholesale Corporation operates membership warehouses, offering its members low prices on a limited selection of nationally branded and private-label products. The company has operations in the United States and Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Spain, and Iceland and France. Costco also operates e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Korea, and Taiwan. Costco Wholesale Corporation began operations in 1983 in Seattle, Washington. In October 1993, Costco merged with The Price Company, which had pioneered the membership warehouse concept in 1976, to form Price/Costco, inc., a Delaware corporation. In 1997 the company changed its name to Costco Companies, Inc. and in 1999, the company changed its name to Costco Wholesale Corporation.