You’ll soon have to pay more if you want to shop at Costco. The membership-based warehouse club said Wednesday that it will increase its membership fee by $5 in the U.S. and Canada as of Sept. 1. That’s an increase to $65 from $60 for annual memberships. Its higher-tier plan, called “Executive Membership,” will increase to $130 a year from $120. Costco said the fee increases would affect around 52 million memberships, a little over half of which are executive memberships. Shares rose about 2% in extended trading Wednesday. It marks Costco’s first membership rate increase since June 2017. On average, the company has raised rates roughly every five and a half years — which would have put Costco on track to raise the fee in late 2022 or early 2023. However, Costco held off on raising fees prior to now. In interviews with CNBC, CEO Craig Jelinek previously said it wasn’t…
