Here’s the twist. In November 2025, the Trump administration removed tariffs on most coffee bean imports, but kept a steep 40% duty on coffee from Brazil. That detail matters because Brazil is a giant in the coffee world, and pricing tends to ripple. Reuters summed it up plainly: taking most countries to zero helps supply, but keeping Brazil high still hurts.
So Dutch Bros is running two races at once in 2026: opening a ton of new shops while managing a cost picture that can change fast. If you’re a regular, you’ll feel it. If you’re an investor, you’ll overthink it. If you’re both, welcome to the club.
The New Math of Your Morning Caffeine
Most people hear “tariffs on coffee” and picture a simple math problem. Bean costs go up, drinks get pricier, the end.
Real life is messier.
Coffee pricing is a patchwork of contracts, timing, inventory, and where your beans come from. When the US keeps Brazil at 40% but drops most other coffee origins to zero, importers have a big incentive to shift sourcing where they can. Reuters quoted analysts making basically that point: price changes reroute trade flows.
But chains can’t just snap their fingers and swap everything overnight. Flavor profiles matter. Supplier relationships matter. And some companies lock in coffee costs ahead of time as a hedge against volatility.
In Dutch Bros’ public filings, the company talks about macro pressures and supply chain risks as real factors that can affect results. That’s not drama; it’s normal risk language for a fast-growing chain that relies on commodities.
So the tariff impact in 2026 isn’t one clean spike. It’s more like a slow squeeze that shows up in odd places: the cost of certain beans, the cost of freight, the cost of equipment, and the cost of doing business in general when everything is a little more expensive than it was two years ago.
And yeah, that can land on the menu board.
Is the Expansion Dead in the Water?
Dutch Bros isn’t trying to be the quiet cafe with laptop people whispering over ceramic mugs. It’s built for cars. Fast lines. High throughput. The drive-thru format makes the business feel almost like a logistics company that happens to sell sugar and caffeine.
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That’s why the expansion story keeps rolling even when costs get annoying.
By late 2025, Dutch Bros was back to reporting robust growth and still speaking confidently of just how many new shops it planned to open. In its third quarter 2025 earnings report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Dutch Bros reported it had opened 38 new shops in that quarter, bringing total revenue to $423.6 million, an increase of 25.2 percent compared with the third quarter of 2024.
They also gave investors a big, clear north star: 2,029 shops by 2029.
That’s the backbone of this whole Dutch Bros Coffee tariffs expansion conversation. If you’re building at that pace, you don’t get to be precious about headwinds. You plan around them. You negotiate. You adjust. You keep pouring concrete.
Because if you stop, you lose momentum. And Dutch Bros is basically momentum with a straw in it.
The Squeeze on Your Wallet
Look, nobody likes hearing “prices may rise”. People are already tired. Groceries feel higher. A quick coffee run has quietly turned into a small treat budget.
So what’s realistic here?
Fact: Dutch Bros has not publicly promised permanent price freezes. No chain does.
Fact: tariffs and commodity swings can pressure margins, and companies often respond with small price moves, portion tweaks, or promotion changes rather than one giant jump.
My read, based on how restaurants usually behave when costs rise, is that you’re more likely to see gradual creep than sticker shock. A few cents here, maybe a menu item that nudges up, maybe fewer deep promos. Not every market at once. Not every drink is the same way.
Also, Dutch Bros isn’t purely a coffee bean story anymore. The menu leans heavily into cold drinks, flavored options, and energy drinks, which spreads the cost exposure across more than just espresso. That doesn’t make tariffs disappear, but it changes how the pain shows up.
So yeah, your regular order might tick up. Or it might feel the same while something else behind the scenes gets trimmed to protect margins. That’s the more common play.
Expansion In 2026 Gets A Wild Card Move
Here’s the part that made industry folks perk up this month.
In mid-January 2026, Dutch Bros agreed to acquire Clutch Coffee Bar, a 20-unit drive-thru chain in the Carolinas, and convert those locations to Dutch Bros shops. Restaurant Dive reported the deal and noted it could push Dutch Bros’ 2026 unit growth closer to 200 when you stack it on top of planned new builds.
That matters for two reasons.
First, it’s speed. Building new sites takes time. Buying existing drive-thru boxes and converting them can be faster, even if renovations still take a minute.
Second, it’s geography. The Carolinas have been a thinner area for Dutch Bros compared with some other regions. This gives them a chunk of local footprint in one move, instead of waiting for a slow drip of openings.
Now tie that back to tariffs. If your input costs stay jumpy, scale becomes even more valuable. Scale gives you leverage with suppliers. Scale helps spread fixed costs. Scale lets you absorb a bad quarter without panicking. Expansion isn’t just growth for growth’s sake. Sometimes it’s defense.
And Dutch Bros, for better or worse, seems to like playing offense.
The Myth of “Homegrown” Coffee
I keep hearing this theory that American coffee chains should just buy “American” to skip the tariffs. It sounds great on a bumper sticker. But here’s the reality check: Hawaii and Puerto Rico produce some incredible coffee, but it’s a drop in the bucket.
Hawaii’s total output wouldn’t last Dutch Bros a week. Plus, Kona coffee is expensive, like, “don’t look at the price tag” expensive. It’s a luxury product, not something you pump full of chocolate macadamia nut syrup and serve in a 24-ounce plastic cup. Dutch Bros is tied to the global market whether they like it or not. There is no magical domestic supply that’s going to save them from these trade tensions.
Why the Stock is Jumping (And Why It’s Shaky)
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If you look at the BROS ticker on the New York Stock Exchange lately, it’s been a wild ride. The stock actually saw a nice bump recently. That might seem weird given the tariff talk. But investors aren’t looking at the price of beans—they’re looking at revenue.
Dutch Bros is still pulling in double-digit growth. People are still lining up for twenty minutes in a drive-thru just to get a caffeinated milkshake.
The “bulls” on Wall Street think the company can outrun the inflation. But the “bears”? They’re worried that the thinner margins will eventually catch up. If you’re holding the stock, keep an eye on the Q1 earnings call. That’s when we’ll see the real damage from the New Year trade policies.
What Investors Are Actually Watching Right Now
If you read earnings releases the way some people read sports box scores, you start noticing what matters most to a chain like this.
It’s not just revenue growth. It’s the same shop sales. It’s transactions. It’s whether new shops open strong or limp out of the gate.
In Dutch Bros’ Q3 2025 release, the company highlighted system same-shop sales growth of 5.7%, with transactions up 4.7%. That’s the kind of detail that makes investors breathe easier, because it suggests demand is not just price driven. People are showing up.
At the same time, the company acknowledged margin pressure in the numbers. Company-operated shop gross margin was down year over year, and pre-opening costs were part of the picture. That’s what expansion looks like in real life: you pay now to grow later.
Tariffs layer on extra tension because they can hit costs while you’re already spending heavily to build. And coffee tariff policy has been choppy. Reuters reported relief for most origins, but Brazil still sitting at 40% keeps the market stressed.
So the investor question in 2026 is pretty simple: can Dutch Bros keep opening aggressively, keep transaction growth positive, and keep margins from getting pinched too hard at the same time?
That’s it. That’s the bet.
The Part That Sticks With Me
Dutch Bros feels like a company built for a certain kind of American day. Commute. Car line. Friendly chaos. A sweet drink you can sip one-handed while the other hand fights traffic.
Tariffs feel like the opposite of that. Slow, political, abstract. But they land in the same place, eventually, because coffee is global and the US still drinks it like it’s a human right.
So when you see “Dutch Bros Coffee tariff expansion” trending as a topic, it’s not just business gossip. It’s a real-time example of how big policy moves can sneak into small daily habits.
If Dutch Bros keeps executing, most customers won’t care about the details. They’ll care that the line moves, the drink tastes right, and the vibe stays fun. If costs force too many price nudges too fast, people will notice. They always do.
Anyway, next time you’re in that drive-thru line, take a look around. Everybody’s there for a three-minute win. Behind that window, the company is dealing with a whole pile of trade math to keep that win feeling easy. And honestly, that’s kind of the story of the modern US economy, isn’t it?
Sources and References
- Reuters: U.S. Coffee Tariff Policy Update (November 2025)
- Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): Dutch Bros Inc. Form 10-Q Quarterly Report (Q3 2025).
- Restaurant Dive: Dutch Bros Acquires Clutch Coffee Bar in Strategic Carolina Expansion (January 2026).
- Nasdaq / BROS Investor Relations: System Same-Shop Sales and Transaction Growth Metrics (2025-2026).
- US Department of Agriculture (USDA): Domestic Coffee Production Statistics – Hawaii and Puerto Rico Yield Reports.
