At **** U.S. dollars, Switzerland has the most expensive Big Macs in the world, according to the January 2025 Big Mac index. Concurrently, the cost of a Big Mac was **** dollars in the U.S., and **** U.S. dollars in the Euro area. What is the Big Mac index? The Big Mac index, published by The Economist, is a novel way of measuring whether the market exchange rates for different countries’ currencies are overvalued or undervalued. It does this by measuring each currency against a common standard – the Big Mac hamburger sold by McDonald’s restaurants all over the world. Twice a year the Economist converts the average national price of a Big Mac into U.S. dollars using the exchange rate at that point in time. As a Big Mac is a completely standardized product across the world, the argument goes that it should have the same relative cost in every country. Differences in the cost of a Big Mac expressed as U.S. dollars therefore reflect differences in the purchasing power of each currency. Is the Big Mac index a good measure of purchasing power parity? Purchasing power parity (PPP) is the idea that items should cost the same in different countries, based on the exchange rate at that time. This relationship does not hold in practice. Factors like tax rates, wage regulations, whether components need to be imported, and the level of market competition all contribute to price variations between countries. The Big Mac index does measure this basic point – that one U.S. dollar can buy more in some countries than others. There are more accurate ways to measure differences in PPP though, which convert a larger range of products into their dollar price. Adjusting for PPP can have a massive effect on how we understand a country’s economy. The country with the largest GDP adjusted for PPP is China, but when looking at the unadjusted GDP of different countries, the U.S. has the largest economy.

This data is used to reflect Consumer Price Index (CPI) of each country.

Codebook variable |definition source date |Date of observation
iso_a3 |Three-character ISO 3166-1 country code
currency_code |Three-character ISO 4217 currency code
name |Country name
local_price |Price of a Big Mac in the local currency McDonalds; The Economist dollar_ex |Local currency units per dollar Reuters dollar_price |Price of a Big Mac in dollars
USD_raw |Raw index, relative to the US dollar
EUR_raw |Raw index, relative to the Euro
GBP_raw |Raw index, relative to the British pound
JPY_raw |Raw index, relative to the Japanese yen
CNY_raw |Raw index, relative to the Chinese yuan
GDP_dollar |GDP per person, in dollars IMF adj_price |GDP-adjusted price of a Big Mac, in dollars
USD_adjusted |Adjusted index, relative to the US dollar
EUR_adjusted |Adjusted index, relative to the Euro
GBP_adjusted |Adjusted index, relative to the British pound
JPY_adjusted |Adjusted index, relative to the Japanese yen
CNY_adjusted |Adjusted index, relative to the Chinese yuan

One United States dollar was worth over ********* Indonesian rupiah in September 2025, the highest value in a comparison of over 50 different currencies worldwide. All countries and territories shown here are based on the Big Mac Index - a measurement of how much a single Big Mac is worth across different areas in the world. This exchange rate comparison reveals a strong position of the dollar in Asia and Latin America. Note, though, that several of the top currencies shown here do not rank among the most traded. The quarterly U.S. dollar exchange rate against the ten biggest forex currencies only contains the Korean won and the Japanese yen.