No McDonald's in Belarus Since 2022 2026
McDonald’s closed all 25 of its Belarusian restaurants in March 2022; the same buildings now trade as Mak.by, a chain the state seized in 2024.
Why Belarus has no Big Mac price
McDonald’s operated in Belarus from 10 December 1996 — three stores opened in Minsk in a single day, making Belarus the chain’s 100th country — until March 2022, when it closed all 25 restaurants as part of its wider response to the war in Ukraine.
What followed was unusual. The Belarusian chain spent most of 2022 in limbo: open, serving food, but trading without a name. In April 2023 the stores formally rebranded as Mak.by (Мак.бай), run by a local licensee called KSB Victory Restaurants. In January 2024 the Belarusian government seized Mak.by through the courts and resold it to a buyer whose identity was removed from the official registry.
Those buildings are still selling burgers in 2026. None of them is a McDonald’s. The closest thing on the Mak.by menu to a Big Mac is the Big Burger — a single chopped-beef patty, lettuce, tomato, Emmental, onion and grill sauce on a sesame bun — with a Double Big Burger sitting closer to the Big Mac’s two-patty structure.
Belarus was never in the Economist’s index, so unlike Russia there is no historical Big Mac series to lose. What the country offers is a narrow shadow reading: a successor chain running on McDonald’s former infrastructure, in a currency with a transparent official rate. The store count is small and the ownership opacity makes it hard to know how prices are being set — and it is emphatically not a Big Mac price.
So this page publishes no Big Mac figure. Belarus sits in the post-exit bucket with an editorial note instead of a 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 Belarus — full articleStatus at a glance
| McDonald's restaurants | None |
|---|---|
| Status | Exited March 2022 — all 25 restaurants closed, later rebranded to Mak.by |
| Successor brand | Mak.by |
| Closest local equivalent | Mak.by Big Burger · Br16.5 BYN (~$5.94) — 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 | IntelliNews — Ex-McDonald's Minsk rebrand to Mak.by (April 2023) , Belarus Feed — McDonald's Minsk 1996 opening (Belarus = 100th McD country) , Belarus NAU — Will McDonald's return to Belarus , Mak.by official menu — Big Burger product page |
Frequently asked questions
Is there a McDonald’s in Belarus?
No. McDonald’s closed all 25 of its Belarusian restaurants in March 2022 and has not returned.
What is Mak.by?
Mak.by is the successor chain that took over the former McDonald’s locations in Belarus, formally rebranded in April 2023 under a local licensee. In January 2024 the Belarusian state seized it through the courts and resold it to an unnamed buyer.
When did McDonald’s open in Belarus?
On 10 December 1996, with three Minsk restaurants opening in a single day. Belarus was the 100th country McDonald’s entered. The chain ran there for just over 25 years.
Why isn't Belarus in the Big Mac Index?
The Big Mac Index compares the price of one identical product across countries. Belarus has no McDonald's restaurant, so there is no Big Mac to price and The Economist publishes no row for it. We list Belarus 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.