No McDonald's in North Korea 2026
McDonald’s has never operated a restaurant in North Korea, so there is no Big Mac price on this page — and no honest way to estimate one.
Why North Korea has no Big Mac price
McDonald’s has never opened a restaurant in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The country has been isolated from US trade since the Korean War armistice of 1953 and under successive layers of US, UN and bilateral sanctions since 2006. There was never a store in Pyongyang, never one inside the Kaesong Industrial Complex during its 2004–2016 inter-Korean run, and no credible plan for one even during the Trump–Kim diplomatic thaw of 2018–2019.
The exclusion is structural rather than accidental. Juche — the doctrine of national self-reliance that has been state ideology since the 1960s — treats foreign-headquartered consumer brands as a category to keep out, not merely a business proposition to decline. That is what separates North Korea from the other gaps on this map: Russia was invited in 1990 and expelled in 2022; Iran had a short Western chapter before 1979. In North Korea the entry has never been on the table.
Pyongyang does have hamburgers, just not Western ones. Samtaesong, founded in 2009 by Singaporean investors, sells what its menu calls “minced beef and bread” and had around 30 outlets by 2018. It is not a successor brand — there was nothing to succeed — and at official exchange rates a burger cost more than half a daily wage, which limited it to people holding foreign currency or elevated rank.
That is why this page carries no number. Every shortcut the Big Mac Index depends on fails here at once: no McDonald’s product to price, no franchise successor close enough to substitute, no usable exchange rate (the official rate of roughly 900 KPW per USD is essentially fictional, while black-market quotes over the past decade have ranged from 8,000 to over 13,000), and no published retail price series, since internal price data is treated as a state secret. South Korea’s central bank reconstructs a DPRK GDP estimate from external proxies rather than from anything Pyongyang publishes.
We would rather show an honest blank than a fabricated proxy, so North Korea stays a permanently grey cell on the index — with the full writeup linked below instead of a price.
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 North Korea — full articleStatus at a glance
| McDonald's restaurants | None |
|---|---|
| Status | Never opened — no restaurant at any point in the country’s history |
| Big Mac Index coverage | Not tracked — there is no Big Mac to price |
| Region | Asia |
| Sources | Britannica — Juche framework |
Frequently asked questions
Is there a McDonald’s in North Korea?
No. There is no McDonald’s anywhere in North Korea in 2026 — no licensee, no franchise agreement and no successor brand.
Has North Korea ever had a McDonald’s?
No. Unlike Russia, which had roughly 850 restaurants before its 2022 exit, or Iceland, which had three until 2009, North Korea has never had a single McDonald’s at any point.
Can you buy a burger in Pyongyang?
Yes, but not a Big Mac. Samtaesong, a local chain founded in 2009 with Singaporean investment, sells hamburgers listed on its menu as “minced beef and bread”. It has no connection to McDonald’s.
Why isn't North Korea in the Big Mac Index?
The Big Mac Index compares the price of one identical product across countries. North Korea has no McDonald's restaurant, so there is no Big Mac to price and The Economist publishes no row for it. We list North Korea 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.