Rent-A-Center closed 69 underperforming stores during the second quarter of 2026 and transferred customer accounts to nearby locations as parent company Upbound Group works to reduce costs and improve store-level profitability.
Upbound reported $1.2 billion in quarterly revenue, an increase of 0.5% from a year earlier. Rent-A-Center generated $466 million, approximately flat from the same quarter in 2025, while the segment’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell 8% to $63 million.
Chief Executive Fahmi Karam said higher fixed costs at Rent-A-Center and the timing of marketing expenses at financial-technology unit Brigit contributed to a companywide decline in adjusted EBITDA to $127 million. He said the store closures were an initial part of a broader effort to improve operations and use digital capabilities to right-size the chain’s physical footprint.
Rent-A-Center operates about 2,100 locations in the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The company did not provide a complete public list of the 69 closures in the material cited by TheStreet. Customers with transferred accounts should verify the servicing location, payment schedule and contact information through official company channels.
The rent-to-own model gives customers immediate access to furniture, appliances and electronics through recurring payments and typically allows merchandise to be returned without completing a purchase. Consumer advocates warn that keeping an item through the full contract can cost far more than paying a traditional retail price. The Federal Trade Commission says many agreements are structured as leases and therefore do not trigger state usury limits applied to loans.
Despite the closures, Karam said Rent-A-Center posted same-store sales growth for a third consecutive quarter. The results show the chain balancing that sales trend against lower segment earnings and the need to remove locations management considers unprofitable.
Sources: TheStreet, Upbound Group’s second-quarter earnings release and earnings call. Published Aug. 10, 2026; financial results were announced July 30, 2026.
