New Jersey Costco Gas Stations Requiring Membership July 2022

I called the warehouse in Brick looking for answers.

Gas is a hot topic lately. Prices are on the rise, and everyone is searching for the most affordable solutions.

For many people (myself included), Costco has become a go-to place to fill up the tank since prices are cheaper than in other places. And lucky for us in New Jersey, we don't need a Costco membership to take advantage of those low prices at the pump.

But it looks like that could be changing.

Will Costco warehouses in New Jersey require memberships to get gas?

The Overheard in Brick Facebook Group is filled with rumors about Costco requiring memberships for gas starting on July 5th, 2022.

Credit: Kayla Simmons

Group members were shocked at the potential news. Mainly because needing a membership to pump gas has been illegal in New Jersey since 2004 (this old article from BizJournals.com explains it).

I called the Brick warehouse to find out if this was true, and they confirmed that starting on July 5th, you will need a membership to get gas.

Will the fuel sale law in New Jersey be changing?

I reached out to my friends in other parts of the state, and they've been seeing similar signs at their Costco gas stations in Wharton, Union, and Manahawkin. My parents have not seen signs at their Costco in Mt. Laurel yet.

As of now, there's no clarification on whether or not the law regarding fuel sales in New Jersey is changing, or if this decision was on Costco's part.

Some commenters in the Facebook Group were happy about the changes - others, not so much. I can see both sides of the fence. I wasn't a Costco member up until earlier this year, so before that, I enjoyed having the freedom of visiting the pumps without needing a card.

People in support of the change were excited about the possibility of shorter gas lines with the exclusion of non-members. But, having spent some time in California, where you must be a Costco member to get gas, I can tell you there still are long lines.

We'll see how this all plays out starting on July 5th.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.