Dollar General and Dollar Tree Earnings, August 27: The Refund Neither Guided

TL;DR

• Both report Thursday, August 27, an hour apart. Dollar Tree releases before the open with a call at 8:00am ET. Dollar General releases and hosts its call at 9:00am ET.
• Consensus is $2.00 for Dollar General and $1.08 for Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree guided the quarter to $1.00-$1.15 on net sales of $4.8-$4.9bn and comps of +2.5-3.5%. The options market prices Dollar General for a ±9.1% move.
• Neither full-year outlook includes the IEEPA tariff refunds. Dollar General's guidance "does not include any potential impact from tariff refund payments"; Dollar Tree's excludes "the impact of tariff refunds". Both are large importers of exactly the goods those duties hit.
• The sell side has split on two businesses reporting the same hour. Dollar General closed Friday at $123.28 with 31 analysts at Buy and an average target of $131.90. Dollar Tree closed at $129.39 with 27 analysts at Hold and an average target of $127.32, which sits below the price.
• Both quarters end inside July, the month retail sales fell 0.6%. Dollar General's closed July 31, Dollar Tree's August 1.

The Board

Two reads on the same customer, an hour apart, priced very differently.

When Do Dollar General and Dollar Tree Report Earnings?

Both report Thursday, August 27, 2026. Dollar Tree publishes results before the market opens and holds its conference call at 8:00am ET, covering the quarter ended August 1. Dollar General publishes and holds its call together at 9:00am ET (8:00am CT), covering the quarter ended July 31.

That hour matters more than it usually would. Dollar Tree's numbers and management commentary land while Dollar General is still in its quiet period, so the first tape reaction in DG will be a read-across from a competitor before its own release exists. The earnings calendar has the rest of that week.

The Refund Neither Company Guided

In February the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs 6-3, holding that the statute does not let a president impose tariffs of indefinite scope. The Court of International Trade has since ruled that refunds go to whoever actually paid the duties, meaning the importer of record. By April, Customs said it could deliver electronic refunds on roughly 82% of entries carrying IEEPA payments, with more than 56,000 importers signed up.

Both companies import heavily, and both left it out of the guide. Dollar General's outlook "does not include any potential impact from tariff refund payments." Dollar Tree's full-year range excludes "the impact of tariff refunds."

I can't size either one, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise: neither company has published a number, and the refund depends on entry-level duty history that isn't in any filing I can read. What I'd watch for on August 27 is whether either CFO quantifies it for the first time. A discount retailer running a single-digit operating margin does not need a large refund for it to move the annual number.

There is a second edge to this. Retailers that raised shelf prices citing tariffs are now drawing consumer class actions arguing the recovered duties belong to customers. A windfall that arrives with litigation attached is worth less than the gross figure.

Dollar Tree's Compare Is Messier Than It Looks

Dollar Tree guided Q2 to $1.00-$1.15. The year-ago quarter came in at $0.77 adjusted from continuing operations, so the guide is roughly +30% to +49% year over year, and consensus at $1.08 sits just above the midpoint.

Read the year-ago release more closely and the base is soft. That $0.77 included $0.20 of benefit from tariff timing that the company itself called out as better than expected. Strip it and the underlying comparison is nearer $0.57, which would make the guided range something closer to a doubling. My read is that the reported growth rate on August 27 will understate the operating improvement, and the useful number is the gross margin line rather than the EPS headline.

One more thing about the shape of Dollar Tree's year. The full-year guide of $6.70-$7.10 against $1.74 delivered in Q1 and roughly $1.08 coming in Q2 puts about 59% of the year in the back half. That sounds aggressive until you check last year, when the same arithmetic gave 63%. This is a Q4 business, and this year is slightly less back-loaded than the one before it. I mention it because the back-half weighting gets cited as a bear point every August and it has not actually worsened.

Dollar General Is the Cheaper One, and the One Wall Street Likes

Dollar General enters the print with the better setup on paper. Q1 delivered net sales of $10.8bn (+3.4%), comps of +2.0%, and EPS of $2.00 (+12.4%), and management raised the full-year range to $7.20-$7.45. The composition was the good kind: comps came from +1.4% traffic and only +0.5% ticket, so people are walking in rather than being charged more.

On the Friday close of $123.28, that guidance midpoint puts the stock near 16.8x its own forecast. Dollar Tree at $129.39 against its $6.90 midpoint is nearer 18.8x. Both multiples are mine, computed off company guidance rather than a screener's forward estimate.

There is an oddity in how the two are priced. Dollar General is the larger company by market value ($27.19bn against $24.87bn) despite the lower share price, and it trades on the lower multiple. It also carries the better rating: 31 analysts at Buy with about 7% of upside to target, against 27 at Hold on Dollar Tree with a target underneath the current price. Those targets belong to the sell side rather than to this site, and they run on a 12-month horizon.

Two cautions on the bull case. Consensus has Dollar General's Q2 at $2.00 against $1.86 a year ago, about +7.5%, down from the +12.4% Q1 just printed, so the sell side already expects deceleration. That is also exactly flat on the $2.00 Q1 just delivered, where last year Q2 came in above Q1. Our earnings calendar puts the straddle expiring August 28 at a ±9.1% implied move, which is wide for a defensive retailer and worth knowing before the print. And the company has guided no share repurchases for the year, with capex at $1.4-$1.5bn. Cash is going into stores and the balance sheet. Anyone modelling EPS growth off a shrinking share count for this name is modelling something management has said will not happen.

Walmart Reports First

The sequencing is the useful part of this week for anyone holding either name. Walmart reports August 20, a full week ahead of the dollar stores and covering the same quarter, and Target and Home Depot go earlier still. By the morning of the 27th the market will already have a read on the same July that DG and DLTR are reporting.

The trade-down argument says a stressed low-income consumer is good for all three. That has been true in past cycles and it is the reason these stocks are not cheap. The version I'd take seriously as a bear case is different: if July's 0.6% drop in retail sales and the collapse in sentiment to 51.0 reflect a customer who has run out of room entirely, that shows up first as falling traffic, not falling ticket. Dollar General's traffic line is the single number I'd check first, because it is the one that has been carrying the comp.

The verdict on which of the two I would rather own into the print, and why the date matters as much as the name, is in Is Dollar General a Buy Before August 27?.

The One-Line Read

Dollar General is the cheaper business with the better traffic and the Buy rating; Dollar Tree is the faster grower with a target below its price. Both report inside an hour, and neither guide contains the tariff refund.