Dollar General closed hundreds of locations after evaluating its store footprint. But there’s an upside

Dollar General’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2026 earnings report shows some successes—though you wouldn’t know that by the reaction of its stock.

Shares of Dollar General Corp (NYSE: DG) fell more than 6% in premarket trading on Thursday following the report’s early-morning release. 

And yet the discount retailer’s financial results include figures such as a 5.9% increase year-over-year (YOY) in quarter-four, with net sales increasing to $10.9 billion. Its 2025 net sales saw a similar jump of 5.2% YOY to $42.7 billion.

Same-store sales also rose 4.3% YOY in the last quarter and 3% YOY for 2025. 

Notably, Dollar General did predict slower growth for 2026. It expects net sales to increase between 3.7% and 4.2% over the year, while it estimates same store sales to grow 2.2% to 2.7%. 

Dollar General store closures

The 2025 report is free of one ominous announcement that loomed over last year’s results: additional store closures. 

In its fiscal 2024 fourth-quarter report, Dollar General announced that it would shutter 96 of its namesake stores and 45 PopShelf locations, a retail chain the company owns.

The 141 store closures followed 117 other shutterings throughout the year.

This time around there are, at least, no additional store closure announcements, and in fact Dollar General ended the year with a net gain in stores.

Dollar General shuttered 290 stores across the two brands in 2025 (which the 141 announced would be included in). But it opened 589 locations. 

As of January 30, 2026, Dollar General had a total count of 20,893 stores, compared to 20,594 at the same time last year.

At publication, Dollar General stock was down more than 7% in early Thursday trading.

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