No McDonald's in North Macedonia Since 2013 2026
McDonald’s closed all seven of its Macedonian restaurants in May 2013 after its franchise licence was terminated, and no successor brand ever took the locations.
Why North Macedonia has no Big Mac price
McDonald’s operated in Macedonia — renamed North Macedonia in 2018 — from 6 September 1997 until 14 May 2013. The local franchisee was SJ Company, owned by the Skopje businessman Svetozar “Sveto” Janevski, working from a development licence dating to the mid-1990s.
McDonald’s Europe terminated that licence unilaterally on the afternoon of Tuesday 14 May 2013. All seven restaurants — six in Skopje, one in Ohrid — closed within roughly 48 hours, and customers arriving the next morning found printed notes on the doors saying the premises were “temporarily closed”. The chain has not reopened in the country since.
No public explanation was ever given. McDonald’s Europe confirmed only that SJ Company “no longer has the right to work with the McDonald’s franchise” — no reason, no word on whether the territory would be relicensed, no transition plan. Macedonian state inspectors publicly clarified that the closure was not triggered by any government action: no health-code raid, no tax issue, no regulatory dispute. Janevski described it as a corporate decision he had no control over.
What separates North Macedonia from the other post-exit countries is that nothing inherited the estate. In Russia the closed stores became Vkusno i tochka; in Belarus, Mak.by; in Iceland, Metro. In Skopje the seven buildings were dispersed individually — coffee shops, phone retailers, a betting shop — with some absorbed into the Skopje 2014 redevelopment. No new brand took the staff, the recipes or the supply chain.
Burger King entered Skopje in 2018 and KFC followed, but neither claims McDonald’s former footprint, and a Whopper is a single-patty product with a different supply chain and a different pricing logic. Anything built on it is a comparator, not a Big Mac price.
North Macedonia is therefore permanently absent from the Economist’s published index: no McDonald’s, no price, no row. We show the country with its exit year and a link to the full story rather than a fabricated number.
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 Macedonia — full articleStatus at a glance
| McDonald's restaurants | None |
|---|---|
| Status | Franchise terminated 14 May 2013 — all seven restaurants closed within 48 hours |
| Closest local equivalent | Burger King Whopper Menu (Skopje) · ден450 MKD (~$8.33) — 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 | Europe |
| Sources | Balkan Insight — McDonald's Restaurants Shut Down in Macedonia (May 2013) , SeeNews — McDonald's Europe ends franchise deal with licensee , Skopje City Guide — Why You Won't Find McDonald's in Skopje , JoyDellaVita — Burger King Skopje menu & prices |
Frequently asked questions
Is there a McDonald’s in North Macedonia?
No. All seven Macedonian restaurants closed within 48 hours of 14 May 2013 and the chain has not reopened in the country since.
Why did McDonald’s close in Macedonia?
McDonald’s Europe unilaterally terminated its franchise agreement with the local licensee, SJ Company, on 14 May 2013, citing unspecified contractual issues. It was a franchise dispute, not a market collapse.
Did another brand take over the Macedonian McDonald’s locations?
No. Unlike Russia, Belarus and Iceland, no successor chain inherited the sites. The seven buildings were sold off individually and became unrelated businesses. Burger King arrived separately in Skopje in 2018.
Why isn't North Macedonia in the Big Mac Index?
The Big Mac Index compares the price of one identical product across countries. North Macedonia has no McDonald's restaurant, so there is no Big Mac to price and The Economist publishes no row for it. We list North Macedonia 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.