No McDonald's in Iran 2026
There is no McDonald’s in Iran in 2026, and none has operated there since the 1979 revolution ended Western brand presence in the country.
Why Iran has no Big Mac price
McDonald’s has no recorded history in Iran. A 1994 attempt to open a McDonald’s in Tehran was reportedly destroyed within days of opening. We have found no primary evidence — contemporary reporting, company records or franchise filings — that the chain ever traded in Iran before the 1979 revolution, and we no longer make that claim.
Since then US sanctions and the political climate have kept the chain out. There is no franchise, no licensee and no announced plan, and Iran has never appeared in the Economist’s Big Mac Index.
Iranians did not stop wanting burgers in 1979 — they stopped getting them under that brand. Tehran is full of local and knock-off chains. The best known is Mash Donald’s, whose owner told NPR: “If I had called my restaurant McDonald’s, I’d get a visit from the hard-liners. My son advised me to go for Mash Donald’s. It sort of sounds the same.” The menu mixes Western-style burgers with falafel sandwiches and a baguette burger. There are also straightforwardly Iranian chains, such as Tehran’s Burgerland, that make no attempt to imitate Western branding.
Even a shadow reading is shaky here, for two reasons. Currency reporting is split — Iran has an official rial rate and a widely used unofficial market rate, and locals quote prices in tomans, one toman being ten rials — so the same menu price converts to wildly different dollar figures depending on which rate you pick. And the product is not a Big Mac: a Mash Donald’s burger is not the standardised input the index requires.
We therefore treat Iran as non-trackable under the strict Big Mac methodology and publish no price on this page.
Read the full story
This page is the short version. The full write-up goes through the timeline, the sources and the numbers that do exist.
Why there's no McDonald's in Iran — full articleStatus at a glance
| McDonald's restaurants | None |
|---|---|
| Status | No franchise since the 1979 revolution — a 1994 Tehran reopening lasted days |
| Closest local equivalent | Mash Donald's Tehran combo (proxy) · ﷼7,493,640 IRR (~$4.46) — not a McDonald's product, and not a Big Mac Index data point |
| Big Mac Index coverage | Not tracked — there is no Big Mac to price |
| Region | Middle East |
| Sources | Wikipedia — Sanctions against Iran |
Frequently asked questions
Is there a McDonald’s in Iran?
No. No McDonald’s has operated in Iran since the 1979 revolution. A 1994 attempt to reopen one in Tehran was reportedly burned down by protesters within days.
Did Iran ever have a McDonald’s?
There is no evidence that it did. We previously repeated a widely circulated claim about a Tabriz outlet around 1971; we removed it in August 2026 after a reader disputed it and we could find no primary source. A 1994 attempt to open one in Tehran was reportedly destroyed within days.
What is Mash Donald’s?
Mash Donald’s is a Tehran imitator chain with reworked golden-arches imagery. Its owner told NPR he chose the name because calling the restaurant McDonald’s would have drawn a visit from hard-liners. Its menu mixes Western-style burgers with falafel sandwiches.
Why isn't Iran in the Big Mac Index?
The Big Mac Index compares the price of one identical product across countries. Iran has no McDonald's restaurant, so there is no Big Mac to price and The Economist publishes no row for it. We list Iran with an editorial note explaining the absence instead of a number — see our methodology.
Dig deeper
- See all 76 countries on the interactive map
- Full 2026 country-by-country breakdown
- Limits of the Big Mac Index
- How I get this data (methodology)
- Know something this page gets wrong, or has a McDonald's opened since? Email me — corrections are credited inline.