In the July 2026 Big Mac Index, Colombia sits fourth in the world at $8.00 — behind only Switzerland, Uruguay and Norway, and ahead of Israel, Denmark and Sweden.
In January 2022 it was 37th, at $3.29.
A 144% rise in four and a half years is the second largest move in the entire index over that period, behind only Turkey. But Turkey’s is a straightforward inflation story. Colombia’s is not, and it is more instructive.
The whole history in one table
| Edition | Local price | COP per USD | Dollar price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2019 | COP 11,900 | 3,192 | $3.73 |
| Jan 2021 | COP 12,950 | 3,461 | $3.74 |
| Jan 2022 | COP 12,950 | 3,942 | $3.29 |
| Jan 2023 | COP 18,900 | 4,546 | $4.16 |
| Jan 2024 | COP 19,900 | 3,912 | $5.09 |
| Jan 2025 | COP 21,900 | 4,232 | $5.17 |
| Jan 2026 | COP 22,900 | 3,687 | $6.21 |
| Jul 2026 | COP 25,900 | 3,236 | $8.00 |
Now look at the first row and the last row of the middle column.
In January 2019 the peso traded at 3,192 to the dollar. In July 2026 it trades at 3,236. Seven and a half years, and the exchange rate is within 1.4% of where it started.
Over the same seven and a half years the local price of a Big Mac went from COP 11,900 to COP 25,900 — up 118%.
That is the entire story. Colombians experienced roughly a doubling of the burger price in their own money. Because the peso ended up back where it began, foreigners saw that doubling with almost nothing taken off.
The peso did not “strengthen.” It came back.
Coverage of this edition will describe a strong Colombian peso, and in the short run that is accurate — the peso appreciated 12.2% against the dollar in six months, the largest move of any currency in the index this round.
| Currency | 6-month move vs USD |
|---|---|
| 🇨🇴 Colombian peso | +12.2% |
| 🇨🇷 Costa Rican colón | +9.0% |
| 🇭🇺 Hungarian forint | +5.7% |
| 🇧🇷 Brazilian real | +5.4% |
| 🇮🇱 Israeli shekel | +4.6% |
But zoom out and “strong” becomes the wrong frame. The peso’s weakest point in this dataset was 4,546 in January 2023. From there to today’s 3,236 is a 29% recovery — and that recovery has merely returned it to its 2019 level. This is not a currency at record strength. It is a currency that fell hard and has since climbed back.
The reason it reads as dramatic in the index is timing: the local price kept rising throughout the weak-peso years, and now the exchange rate has retraced while those price increases stayed put. Dollar-denominated visitors are being shown the accumulated local inflation of an entire cycle, all at once, without the currency discount that used to hide it.
Colombia against its neighbours
Latin America did not move together this edition, which is the clearest sign that this is country-specific rather than regional.
| Country | Dollar price | Local price | Exchange rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇨🇴 Colombia | +28.8% | +13.1% | −12.2% |
| 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | +15.8% | +5.4% | −9.0% |
| 🇦🇷 Argentina | +6.7% | +8.8% | +1.9% |
| 🇧🇷 Brazil | +5.7% | 0.0% | −5.4% |
| 🇺🇾 Uruguay | +2.1% | +5.9% | +3.8% |
| 🇲🇽 Mexico | +1.7% | 0.0% | −1.6% |
| 🇵🇪 Peru | −0.8% | 0.0% | +0.8% |
| 🇨🇱 Chile | −0.2% | +4.2% | +4.4% |
Brazil, Mexico and Peru did not change their menu prices at all. Colombia raised its by 13.1% — and did so while its currency was appreciating, which is unusual. Ordinarily a strengthening currency relieves pressure on import and input costs; raising prices into that is a sign the pressure is domestic.
Costa Rica is the closest analogue: same shape, smaller magnitude, also driven by a currency recovery meeting sticky local increases.
What this means depending on who you are
If you are travelling to Colombia, the era of it being a cheap destination for dollar-holders is over for now. On this measure Colombia is more expensive than Denmark, Sweden, Britain and the eurozone average. A visitor budgeting from a 2022 trip will be badly wrong.
If you are reading this as a currency signal, the Big Mac Index now classifies the peso as overvalued against the dollar — Colombia’s $8.00 sits 29% above the US benchmark of $6.22. The index’s own theory says that gap should close over time. It is worth being honest that this prediction has a poor track record over horizons shorter than a decade, for reasons we covered in why PPP theory fails.
If you are Colombian, none of the above is news. Your burger went from 12,950 to 25,900 pesos. The index is only now catching up to what your wallet has known for four years.
The caveat worth stating
One Big Mac in one country is a thin instrument. Colombia’s McDonald’s operates in a market with its own rent, labour and franchise economics, and the index tracks a single product in a handful of urban locations. It captures the direction of Colombian price levels well; it should not be read as a precise measure of Colombian inflation.
What it does capture unusually well here is the interaction — local prices ratcheting up during a currency slump, then the currency recovering while the prices stay. That mechanism is real, it is not unique to Colombia, and it is the sort of thing a burger measures better than most indices.
Data: The Economist Big Mac Index, all editions January 2019 – July 2026. See the Colombia country page for current figures and live exchange rates, or the full July 2026 breakdown for this edition’s other movers.