Updated April 2026 · SEC DEF 14A data
General Counsel - Costco
General Counsel at Costco · Retail
General Counsel - Costco holds the role of General Counsel at Costco. Total reported compensation: $3.5M. Named Executive Officer (NEO) compensation at U.S. public companies is disclosed through the SEC proxy statement filing — typically the CEO, CFO, and three highest-paid additional officers.
Compensation at this scale is typical of senior executives at mid-cap public companies, or non-CEO senior officers at larger firms. Equity awards tend to dominate cash compensation in the disclosure. The CEOPay executive page surfaces the per-year compensation history (where multi-year disclosure exists), the breakdown by award type, and the per-company context for the role. Cross-executive comparisons within a single company are most useful for understanding internal pay structure.
General Counsel - Costco, General Counsel at Costco, earned $3.5M in reported total compensation in fiscal year 2024. Pay was disclosed in the company's SEC DEF 14A proxy statement and is broken into salary, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentive, pension change, and other compensation under the Summary Compensation Table required by Regulation S-K Item 402.
Total Compensation
Fiscal year 2024
Compensation Breakdown
General Counsel - Costco Cumulative Compensation: $3.5M in SEC-Disclosed Pay
General Counsel - Costco has earned $3.5M in cumulative total compensation across the 1 fiscal year of disclosure on file (2024) as General Counsel at Costco. That figure — the sum of every Summary Compensation Table entry the company has filed under SEC Regulation S-K Item 402 — is a defensible floor for an estimated net worth conversation: it is in the seven-to-eight-figure range based on disclosed pay alone; actual net worth depends materially on what fraction of vested equity General Counsel - Costco chose to hold versus sell, plus the share-price trajectory of Costco over the same window. General Counsel - Costco's actual net worth is not directly disclosed in SEC filings; it would require reconciling this cumulative pay with current beneficial ownership, prior open-market stock sales (reported on Form 4), exercised options, taxes paid, and personal investments outside the company.
What General Counsel - Costco's Pay Tells Us
General Counsel - Costco earns $3.5M as General Counsel at Costco. Compensation at this level is typical for named executive officers below the CEO position, with base salary and annual cash bonuses playing a more substantial role in the package mix than at the very top of the executive distribution.
Balanced equity-and-cash package: stock and option awards account for roughly 62% of total compensation, with base salary at 15% and the remainder in annual cash incentive, pension change, and other compensation. This mix is common in mid-cap public companies and in industries with more stable revenue trajectories.
Costco's CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is 375:1 — broadly typical of large U.S. enterprise companies under the SEC Item 402(u) disclosure framework. Shareholders approved the most recent say-on-pay vote with 91.0% support — within the typical S&P 500 range.
Compensation History
| Year | Salary | Bonus | Stock Awards | Options | Non-Equity | Other | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | $532K | - | $1.8M | $426K | $532K | $284K | $3.5M |
Compensation history covers a single fiscal year (2024) of disclosed total compensation. Multi-year tenure history will appear here as additional DEF 14A filings reach the SEC EDGAR system.
How These Numbers Are Reported
Every figure on this page comes from the SEC DEF 14A proxy statement that Costco filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its most recent annual shareholder meeting. The proxy is freely available on the SEC's EDGAR system. Inside it, the Summary Compensation Table reports salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentive plan compensation, change in pension and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings, all other compensation, and total — for the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and the three other most highly compensated executive officers (the "named executive officers" or NEOs).
Stock awards and option awards are reported at grant-date fair value under FASB ASC 718, which is an accounting estimate at the time of grant rather than realized pay. Realized pay — what the executive actually banked — appears in the separate "Option Exercises and Stock Vested" table inside the same DEF 14A. Both views matter: the grant-date number is what the board approved, the realized number is what actually flowed to the executive in a given year. Read the full methodology for inputs, weights, and how each line item is sourced.
Authoritative governance context: Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis publish the proxy-advisor frameworks most institutional shareholders use to evaluate pay alignment, and our Pay-for-Performance Grade follows the same four-factor approach.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does General Counsel - Costco earn?
General Counsel - Costco earned $3.5M in total compensation as General Counsel at Costco in fiscal year 2024, as disclosed in the company's most recent SEC DEF 14A proxy statement. General Counsel - Costco earns $3.5M as General Counsel at Costco. Compensation at this level is typical for named executive officers below the CEO position, with base salary and annual cash bonuses playing a more substantial role in the package mix than at the very top of the executive distribution.
What is General Counsel - Costco's pay package made of?
General Counsel - Costco's reported total of $3.5M breaks into base salary of $532K, stock awards of $1.8M, option awards of $426K, plus non-equity incentive, pension change, and other compensation. Balanced equity-and-cash package: stock and option awards account for roughly 62% of total compensation, with base salary at 15% and the remainder in annual cash incentive, pension change, and other compensation. This mix is common in mid-cap public companies and in industries with more stable revenue trajectories.
What is General Counsel - Costco's net worth?
General Counsel - Costco has earned $3.5M in cumulative total compensation across the 1 fiscal year of disclosure on file (2024) as General Counsel at Costco. That figure — the sum of every Summary Compensation Table entry the company has filed under SEC Regulation S-K Item 402 — is a defensible floor for an estimated net worth conversation: it is in the seven-to-eight-figure range based on disclosed pay alone; actual net worth depends materially on what fraction of vested equity General Counsel - Costco chose to hold versus sell, plus the share-price trajectory of Costco over the same window. General Counsel - Costco's actual net worth is not directly disclosed in SEC filings; it would require reconciling this cumulative pay with current beneficial ownership, prior open-market stock sales (reported on Form 4), exercised options, taxes paid, and personal investments outside the company.
Where does this compensation data come from?
Every figure on this page is sourced from the SEC DEF 14A proxy statement that Costco filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of its most recent annual shareholder meeting. The Summary Compensation Table inside the filing is the authoritative document, available on the SEC EDGAR system at https://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. Equity values follow FASB ASC 718 grant-date fair-value accounting; pension changes reflect the year-over-year actuarial revision required by Regulation S-K Item 402.
How has General Counsel - Costco's pay changed over time?
Compensation history covers a single fiscal year (2024) of disclosed total compensation. Multi-year tenure history will appear here as additional DEF 14A filings reach the SEC EDGAR system.
What is Costco's pay-for-performance picture?
Costco's CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio is 375:1 — broadly typical of large U.S. enterprise companies under the SEC Item 402(u) disclosure framework. Shareholders approved the most recent say-on-pay vote with 91.0% support — within the typical S&P 500 range. Costco earns a Pay-for-Performance Grade of C (61/100) on the four-factor framework documented on the methodology page.
Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, DEF 14A proxy filings via EDGAR. Public domain.
Last updated 2026-04-06 · 1 fiscal years of compensation history on file.