Updated February 2026 · McDonald's Price Data + BLS CPI
Big Mac Index 2026:
$5.91 and Rising
The Big Mac costs $5.91 in 2026, up 41% since 2017. A homemade cheeseburger costs just $3.29 using the same grocery ingredients, $2.62 less. Here is the full price history, what drives the gap, and how the Big Mac Index compares to the Burgernomics.
Big Mac Price History (2017-2026)
The average U.S. Big Mac price has increased every year since 2017. The steepest jump came between 2019 and 2022, when pandemic-era supply chain disruptions and labor shortages pushed fast food prices up faster than grocery prices.
| Year | Big Mac Price | YoY Change | Homemade Burger | Big Mac Premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | $4.19 | - | $2.02 | 2.1x |
| 2018 | $4.29 | +2.4% | $2.10 | 2.0x |
| 2019 | $4.51 | +5.1% | $2.17 | 2.1x |
| 2020 | $4.82 | +6.9% | $2.19 | 2.2x |
| 2022 | $5.15 | +6.8% | $2.47 | 2.1x |
| 2023 | $5.39 | +4.7% | $2.65 | 2.0x |
| 2024 | $5.69 | +5.6% | $2.71 | 2.1x |
| 2025 | $5.79 | +1.8% | $2.86 | 2.0x |
| 2026 | $5.91 | +2.1% | $3.27 | 1.8x |
Big Mac prices from menu price aggregator data across 13,500+ U.S. McDonald's locations. Homemade prices from BLS CPI Average Price Data (January of each year).
What Is the Big Mac Index?
The Big Mac Index was invented by The Economist magazine in 1986 as a “lighthearted guide” to whether currencies are at their “correct” level. The logic: since a Big Mac is a standardized product sold in roughly 120 countries with the same recipe, its local price should reflect the purchasing power of the local currency.
If a Big Mac costs $5.91 in the United States and 24.00 Swiss francs in Switzerland, the implied exchange rate is 4.06 francs per dollar. Compare that to the actual market rate, and you get a rough estimate of whether the franc is overvalued or undervalued.
The index was never meant to be a precision instrument, The Economist calls it “burgernomics.” But it has been cited in dozens of academic papers and referenced by central banks and the IMF in discussions of currency valuation.
Big Mac Index vs. Burgernomics
The Burgernomics takes a different approach. Instead of comparing a branded product across countries, it tracks the raw ingredient cost of a homemade burger across U.S. regions and time using BLS Average Price Data.
- Big Mac ($5.91), includes labor, rent, marketing, franchise fees, and profit. Only ~30% is food cost.
- Burgernomics ($3.29), isolates just the commodity food cost: ground beef, cheese, bread, lettuce, and tomatoes at retail.
The Big Mac embeds all the costs of running a restaurant. Burgernomics strips them away to show what food actually costs, making it a purer measure of food inflation.
The Growing Gap: Big Mac vs. Homemade
Both prices have risen, but the Big Mac is pulling away. In 2017, the Big Mac cost 2.1x a homemade burger. Today it costs 1.8x. Restaurant costs (labor, rent) are growing faster than grocery prices.
Big Mac vs. Homemade by Region
The Big Mac costs roughly the same everywhere in the U.S., but homemade burger costs vary by region. Here is how the savings compare.
How the Big Mac Compares to Other Chains
The Big Mac sits in the middle of the fast food price spectrum. Here is every major chain burger ranked against the homemade baseline.
| Chain | Burger | Price | vs. Homemade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your Kitchen | Homemade Cheeseburger | $3.29 | Baseline |
| McDonald's | McDouble | $3.59 | 1.1x |
| In-N-Out | Double-Double | $5.25 | 1.6x |
| McDonald's | Big Mac ← | $5.91 | 1.8x |
| Wendy's | Dave's Single | $6.49 | 2x |
| Shake Shack | ShackBurger | $7.49 | 2.3x |
| Burger King | Whopper | $7.99 | 2.4x |
| Five Guys | Cheeseburger | $9.69 | 2.9x |
| Restaurant | Sit-down burger (median) | $14.64 | 4.4x |
Prices from published menus, price aggregator data, and Toast POS (164,000 locations). See full comparison for meal combos, family math, and inflation breakdown.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Big Mac Index is an informal measure of purchasing power parity (PPP) created by The Economist magazine in 1986. It compares the price of a McDonald's Big Mac across countries to determine whether currencies are over- or undervalued. Because the Big Mac is sold in roughly 120 countries with a standardized recipe, it provides a surprisingly useful proxy for comparing the purchasing power of different currencies. Burgernomics applies a similar concept domestically, tracking homemade burger ingredient costs across U.S. regions using BLS data.
The average Big Mac costs $5.91 in 2026, based on prices from over 13,500 McDonald's locations across the United States. A Big Mac Meal (with fries and drink) averages $9.30. For comparison, a homemade cheeseburger using grocery store ingredients costs just $3.29, $2.62 less than a Big Mac.
The Big Mac has risen from $4.19 in 2017 to $5.91 in 2026, an increase of 41%. That outpaces general inflation over the same period. Meanwhile, the homemade Burgernomics, which isolates raw ingredient costs from BLS data, shows that food commodity prices have risen at a different rate than restaurant menu prices, because restaurant costs include labor, rent, and profit margins.
The Big Mac Index compares a branded fast-food product across countries to measure currency valuation. Burgernomics tracks the raw ingredient cost of a homemade burger across U.S. regions over time using BLS price data. The Big Mac price ($5.91) includes labor, rent, marketing, and profit, only about 30% is actual food cost. Burgernomics ($3.29) isolates just the food cost: ground beef, cheese, bread, lettuce, and tomatoes at retail prices.
A Big Mac costs $5.91 while a homemade cheeseburger costs $3.29, a 1.8x premium. The difference is not the ingredients. McDonald's food costs are roughly 30-35% of the menu price. The rest covers labor (crew wages, managers), occupancy (rent, utilities, maintenance), franchise fees, marketing, and profit margin. You are paying for convenience, speed, and consistency, not for a more expensive burger.
The Big Mac Index has real limitations. It assumes Big Macs are identical everywhere (they are not, portion sizes, ingredients, and taxes vary). It ignores non-tradable costs like local rent and labor, which heavily influence the final price. And it only works where McDonald's operates. Despite this, IMF and World Bank economists have found it correlates reasonably well with more rigorous PPP measures. The Economist now publishes an "adjusted" version that accounts for GDP per person to address some of these criticisms.