IKEA is closing all three of its small plan-and-order stores in the Washington, D.C. area, and the last one shuts November 30. Georgetown, in the District, closes October 18. Annapolis, Maryland, follows at the end of that month, and Fairfax, Virginia, goes on November 30. These stores do not sell furniture off the floor. They exist for design appointments and for picking up online orders. IKEA says each one sits near another IKEA store, and workers can move to those stores. For shoppers with a kitchen project or a pickup order in progress, the first deadline is only five days away.
The practical question is what happens to a half-finished design or an order waiting at one of the three. IKEA’s own store pages answer part of it, and the company’s customer service site explains how an order can be changed or cancelled. Anyone with an open project at a closing store should treat that store’s closing date as the last day to finish business there.
The number of IKEA locations open around Washington drops on October 18, again at the end of October and a last time on November 30, and IKEA’s store pages change as each date passes.
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Three stores, three closing dates
Georgetown goes first. Retail Dive, a retail trade publication, reported on October 2 that the D.C. store closes October 18, and said IKEA confirmed the closures to the outlet. The Georgetown store was less than a year old. It had replaced an earlier plan-and-order location in nearby Arlington, Virginia, which has since closed. IKEA’s U.S. store directory now shows no D.C. location, only the Maryland and Virginia sites.
Annapolis is the one place where the dates differ. IKEA’s page for the store, at 2528 Solomons Island Road, says the location will close on October 31, 2026, and points shoppers to IKEA College Park or IKEA Baltimore. Retail Dive reported October 30. Because the company’s own page carries October 31, that is the date to plan around, and a call before a late-October visit is the safe way to confirm the last day of appointments.
Fairfax, at 4206 Fairfax Corner Avenue, closes last. IKEA’s page for that store is blunt: “we have made the decision to close the IKEA Fairfax Plan and order point with Pick-up,” with a closing date of November 30, 2026. The page names IKEA College Park, Gaithersburg and Woodbridge as the nearby alternatives. Fairfax has the longest runway of the three, since it stays open through Thanksgiving week and the Black Friday weekend.
What the small stores did
A plan-and-order point is a small studio, not a warehouse store. The Annapolis and Fairfax pages describe one-on-one planning appointments for kitchens, living room storage and wardrobes, in person or by video, plus pickup of online orders at the location. Pickup is free for members of the IKEA Family loyalty program and costs $2 for everyone else. The pages also say the locations take no cash and sell nothing for same-day takeaway.
Returns are not what changes. The Annapolis page says returns already go to IKEA College Park or IKEA Woodbridge, and the Fairfax page says there are no physical returns at that location. What ends is the pickup point and the in-person design desk. The store pages do not spell out what happens to orders already placed for pickup at the closing stores, and Retail Dive’s report does not either.
Why IKEA is pulling back from small stores
IKEA’s emailed statement to Retail Dive framed the closures as part of a strategy “to build a more affordable, accessible, and sustainable future,” and said the company is continuing to invest in home delivery, pickup services and digital channels. The company added, “Each of these locations is situated near another Ikea store.” No spokesperson was named. Workers at the three stores can relocate to nearby IKEA stores in Baltimore, College Park, Maryland, and Woodbridge, Virginia, according to the report.
The move cuts against IKEA’s recent push into small formats. In 2023, the company planned to invest $2.2 billion over three years in the U.S., including nine plan-and-order locations, Retail Dive noted. In February 2026, IKEA outlined plans to open 10 more U.S. stores this year, including its first Oklahoma store and its first city-center store in Los Angeles. Retail Dive said the Washington-area closures appear to reverse the small-store strategy, even as IKEA keeps expanding elsewhere.
Moving an unfinished project to another store
IKEA’s customer service site says an order can be managed, cancelled or rescheduled through the order history page or by contacting the company, which is the free route for a pickup order tied to one of the closing stores. Customers with a planning project can continue it at another IKEA in the market or online with a remote planner, according to Retail Dive. IKEA College Park, the store both the Annapolis and Fairfax pages name, lists a free planning consultation booking on its page and sits at 10100 Baltimore Avenue.
The closing dates set the pressure. Georgetown shoppers have five days, Annapolis shoppers about two and a half weeks, and Fairfax shoppers until after Black Friday weekend. What IKEA has not said is whether a design started at a closing studio moves to College Park or Woodbridge with the customer or has to be rebuilt from scratch in a new appointment.
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This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed against the cited public sources.
