No McDonald's in Bolivia Since 2002 2026
McDonald’s opened in Bolivia in 1997, closed all eight restaurants on 27 July 2002 after five years of losses, and has never returned.
Why Bolivia has no Big Mac price
McDonald’s opened its first Bolivian restaurant in 1997 and ran eight locations across La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. On 27 July 2002, after five years of losses, it closed every one of them and left the country.
The stated reason was plain commercial failure. Bolivians could get a fuller meal — salteñas, anticuchos, market and street food — for around $2–3, against a McDonald’s combo priced at $4–5. Slow-food values and anti-globalisation sentiment compounded the price gap rather than causing the exit on their own.
Bolivia is the cleanest case in this whole set of a voluntary corporate exit from a functioning democratic market. Iceland’s 2009 exit had a currency collapse behind it; Russia’s 2022 exit had a war. Bolivia just did not sell enough burgers. It remains the only country in the Americas, apart from Cuba and some small Caribbean islands, without a McDonald’s.
One timing point is worth correcting, because it gets muddled: the closure pre-dates Evo Morales’s presidency by three and a half years. Morales took office in January 2006 and his government was openly hostile to US fast-food brands, but the 2002 exit was a corporate decision, not a state action. The relevant number is the consumer base — by the early 2000s roughly 63% of Bolivians lived below the poverty line and 38% in extreme poverty, which is a thin market for a $4–5 combo.
Other Western chains stayed. KFC, Subway and Burger King all still operate, with Burger King running locations in La Paz and Santa Cruz. Local burger culture is strong enough that La Paz holds an annual Burger Week with more than a hundred participating restaurants. But nothing inherited the McDonald’s estate — the eight stores were sold off individually, so unlike Russia or Iceland there is not even a successor chain to read a shadow price from.
For the index, though, Bolivia is a clean non-trackable entry: there is no McDonald’s, so there is no Big Mac price, and this page shows none.
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 Bolivia — full articleStatus at a glance
| McDonald's restaurants | None |
|---|---|
| Status | Exited 27 July 2002 — all eight restaurants closed after five years of losses |
| Closest local equivalent | Burger King Whopper · Bs39 BOB (~$5.64) — 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 | Americas |
| Sources | Wikipedia — McDonald's Bolivia 2002 closure |
Frequently asked questions
Is there a McDonald’s in Bolivia?
No. McDonald’s closed all eight of its Bolivian restaurants on 27 July 2002 and has not returned.
Why did McDonald’s fail in Bolivia?
After five years the Bolivian franchise was still losing money. A fuller local meal cost around $2–3 against a $4–5 McDonald’s combo, and slow-food and anti-globalisation sentiment widened the gap. The chain closed all eight stores in July 2002.
Which fast-food chains does Bolivia have instead?
KFC, Subway and Burger King all operate in Bolivia, alongside a strong independent burger scene — La Paz even runs an annual Burger Week with more than a hundred participating restaurants.
Why isn't Bolivia in the Big Mac Index?
The Big Mac Index compares the price of one identical product across countries. Bolivia has no McDonald's restaurant, so there is no Big Mac to price and The Economist publishes no row for it. We list Bolivia 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.