Israel is ranked second in the world for the price of a McDonald's Big Mac meal, right behind Switzerland, according to the updated Big Mac Index published by the British weekly The Economist. According to the data, the dollar price of the meal in Israel stands at $7.67. By comparison, in the United States the meal costs $6.22, and in Taiwan $2.42.
In the previous ranking, published in January of this year, Israel was ranked eighth. The rise in the ranking stems from a combination of price increases for the meal in Israel alongside the strengthening of the shekel against the dollar.
At the beginning of 2025, the price of a Big Mac in Israel stood at NIS 17, and at the beginning of the current year it rose to NIS 20. Last February, the price of the meal rose by an additional 15% to NIS 23. At the time data was collected for the current ranking, the shekel was trading at around NIS 3 to the dollar, which brought the price increase in dollar terms above the meal prices in countries such as Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.
What is the Big Mac Index?
The Big Mac Index was launched in 1986 as a tool to illustrate the theory of Purchasing Power Parity. According to this theory, an identical product should cost a similar price in different countries after currency conversion. The index is based on the Big Mac due to the uniformity of the product and its input composition, which includes labor costs (about 45.5% of the meal price), bread (12%), meat (9%), rent (4.5%), as well as electricity, infrastructure prices, and local taxes. A gap in the dollar price of the meal between countries reflects the local price level, or the deviation of the local currency's exchange rate against the dollar.
Israel has been ranked near the top of the index in the past. In 1997, it was ranked third, with a meal price of NIS 11.5. Starting in 2002, Israel was excluded from the index for several years following appeals by government officials claiming that the index did not reflect Israeli economic data. At that time, the price of the meal stood at NIS 12.9, which was equivalent to $2.84.