7-Eleven Is Closing More Than 600 Stores This Year, Adding to the 700 It Has Already Shuttered Since 2024
7-Eleven plans to close 645 convenience stores across North America during fiscal 2026, which runs from March 2026 through February 2027, according to documents released by parent company Seven & i Holdings. The figure adds to a significant recent downturn in the chain’s footprint, and it means this year alone will see more closures than what the company announced back in 2024.
The 645 planned closures come on top of roughly 700 stores 7-Eleven has already shut down between 2024 and 2025, putting the chain on track to have closed well over 1,300 locations in just a few years. Fiscal 2026 will also mark the fifth consecutive year the company has closed more stores than it has opened, according to Seven & i Holdings’ fourth-quarter earnings documents.
Not every closure in the 645-store plan means a shuttered storefront. Some locations are being converted to what Seven & i Holdings calls “wholesale fuel stores,” a category the company tracks separately from its standard retail count. Under this arrangement, 7-Eleven sells fuel to a tenant rather than operating the site directly, reducing costs while keeping some revenue from the property.
The Closures Are Part of a Larger Financial Overhaul
Seven & i Holdings has been working toward an initial public offering for 7-Eleven in 2027, and the store closures are directly tied to that goal. The company announced last week that the IPO has been delayed by at least 11 months due to market uncertainty, but the broader effort to streamline operations and improve its balance sheet remains on course, according to C-Store Dive.
Cost-cutting has been a consistent theme in Seven & i Holdings’ recent financial moves. CFO Yoshimichi Maruyama noted in January that the company has pursued various productivity improvement initiatives and brought some maintenance tasks in-house to reduce expenses, according to Convenience Store Dive. Closing underperforming locations fits the same pattern, as the company works to present a leaner, more profitable operation before it goes public.
The financial pressure driving these closures has been building for years. In 2024, 7-Eleven announced the closure of 444 stores, about 3 percent of its North American base of more than 13,000 locations, citing inflation, weaker foot traffic, and shifting consumer habits, according to OPB.org. Only 227 of those locations closed by year’s end, with the remainder phased out through 2025, per The Independent.
7-Eleven Is Betting on Food and Larger Stores to Replace Its Old Format
The closures reflect a fundamental shift in how 7-Eleven sees its future. Blake Doersch, a senior retail analyst at eMarketer, described the chain’s evolution on a recent podcast as less of an expansion and more of a full transformation toward a hybrid model, one that blends traditional convenience with food service and grocery, replacing a business built largely around tobacco and fuel.
That shift is happening across the entire convenience store sector. NIQ’s 2024 State of Convenience report noted that while fuel and tobacco remain essential for the country’s 150,000-plus stores, growth is being led by locations that prioritize fresh, higher-quality food. The NACS 2023 State of the Industry Report found that prepared food sales rose 12 percent year over year across the sector.
Wawa and Sheetz have already shown this model can work. Both regional chains built loyal customer bases by investing in made-to-order food, coffee bars, and expanded menus, effectively turning their locations into meal destinations rather than quick-stop shops. 7-Eleven is now pursuing the same approach through its newer, larger store format, which C-Store Dive describes as a large-format, food-focused design.
New Openings Are Still Happening, but the Store Mix Is Changing
Despite the headline numbers, 7-Eleven is not in full retreat. The company expects to open more than 200 new North American locations during fiscal 2026, all built under its larger, food-focused format, according to Seven & i Holdings’ earnings documents. Those new stores are meant to reflect where the chain is going, trading smaller, older layouts for ones built around prepared food and greater variety.
The wholesale fuel conversion strategy is also worth watching. Virginia-based Arko Corp., which operates more than 1,000 convenience stores through its GPM Investments arm, has taken a similar approach, converting 409 sites since mid-2024 through what it calls a “dealerization” strategy, according to Convenience Store Dive. For 7-Eleven, shifting company-owned sites to wholesale allows it to offload operational costs while still generating fuel revenue from those properties.
What’s unfolding at 7-Eleven mirrors a broader realignment across the American convenience store industry. A business long built around fuel and tobacco is being rebuilt around food, and that shift is showing up in both the stores being closed and the new ones being built. Whether the 2027 IPO ultimately captures a completed transformation remains an open question.
