McDonald's Is Making Some Big Changes In 2026

In case you're not up to speed on the fast food world, McDonald's has been going through some interesting changes lately. Despite international sales on the rise, the most profitable fast food restaurant chain in the world continued to experience lower domestic profits than expected in 2025, per its third quarter earnings call in November with shareholders. 

McDonald's is facing intensifying competition, higher beef prices due to inflation (which CEO Chris Kempczinski referred to as "sticky" during the earnings call posted on YouTube), and cooling sales among Americans in lower income brackets. But don't think that any of this marks the beginning of the end for the fast food world's longtime ruler. As Kempczinski also revealed during the earnings call, McDonald's is making some pretty big changes in 2026 in attempt to bolster its reputation, streamline operations, and win back its core customers. While this will include various tactics that address menu items, customer experience, pricing, and new locations, the core strategy is clear: McDonald's needs to focus once more on providing clear and compelling value to customers. Will these changes ultimately pay off in the burger joint's favor? That remains to be seen. But here are five of the biggest changes coming this year.

Hoping for a new Mickey D's closer to you? That could become a reality, thanks to an estimated 900 new locations planned to open in the U.S. by 2027. Poised to be the company's fastest-ever period of growth, the openings are part of the company's larger aim of having 50,000 restaurants worldwide, according to a December 2023 press release. The most recent information available shows McDonald's reporting more than 44,000 locations in over 100 countries. The 900 openings referenced in a May 2025 press release are slightly scaled back from the initial 1,000 new domestic restaurants announced in 2023. 

As of early January 2026, no list of where the new locations will be has been announced. It's also not clear whether any of these will include a reopening of any of the hundreds of McDonald's locations that closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether the slight decrease in the projected number of new stores will keep the company on track for its goal to increase revenue between $300 million and $500 million each year through 2027 remains to be seen.

It was big news in late October 2025 when McDonald's started rounding cash payments to the nearest nickel in response to America's penny shortage. What that didn't address, however, was just how inconsistent menu prices had already become. In 2025 (and for many years prior), customers buying the exact same foods in different locations couldn't count on paying the same price. For example, a Big Mac in Seattle cost $6.99 in December 2025, while the same item cost only $5.19 just one state away in Boise, Idaho. That's because McDonald's works primarily on a franchise model, meaning individual owners have long been able to adjust their own menu pricing as they saw fit. And since around 95% of McDonald's locations are franchises, per the company's own data, this means tons of variation.

But customers may start seeing more consistent pricing across the board in 2026. The corporate arm of McDonald's will be rolling out new guidelines and tools for franchisees designed to evaluate menu value and hold location owners more accountable for setting standardized prices. Andrew Gregory, McDonald's senior vice president of global franchising, stated in a memo that was first reported by CNBC that tightening up brand standards would help bring more clarity across the system and make sure every restaurant delivers a consistent, reliable experience for customers. Only time will tell whether this will actually result in that Seattle Big Mac dropping down to the price in Boise, but it's a move definitely aligned with bringing back customers who earn lower incomes and are eating out less.

If you've noticed an increasing emphasis on the McDonald's app, that's because the fast food company is yet again pushing new growth goals for its loyalty program. Specifically, the company aims to see 30% of delivery orders come in through its mobile app by 2027 under its "Accelerating the Arches" strategy detailed in December 2023. In August 2025, McDonald's announced further details for its new digital streamlining efforts via a "Digitizing the Arches" strategy. 

While it's unclear exactly what all will be included in the strategy, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer Brian Rice stated in a McDonald's press announcement that it will involve rollout of a Ready on Arrival initiative in select markets to reduce customer wait times for mobile orders by over 50% through the use of geofencing. He also spelled out opportunities for U.S. customers to redeem points for non-food, non-McDonald's digital rewards. Access to one month of Snapchat Plus with 1,500 MyMcDonald's reward points was the example that Rice gave. 

It's all part of the company's larger goal of reaching 250 million 90-day active users to its loyalty program by 2027. The push toward revitalizing the app isn't surprising, given that the fast food chain has adapted technological advancements before in the hopes of attracting new customers; the restaurant's app was initially launched in 2013 amid struggling sales with the goal of appealing to millennials. 

Drive thrus have been a staple of fast food restaurants for decades and continue to account for the majority of sales. However, quick-service restaurant (QSR) data collected by Revenue Management Solutions shows that drive thrus have been suffering through a steady decline in traffic, down from a peak of 83% of total orders in 2020 during the pandemic to 63% in 2025. The cause is attributed to changing consumer habits, primarily in terms of both food delivery and dining in increasing in popularity. But McDonald's isn't giving up on its drive thrus anytime soon under the belief that improved efficiency will help bolster sales. The company announced in December 2023 that it would be build additional lanes where needed to help decrease wait times, with the goal of completing the improvements by 2027.

The company also plans to implement AI features in the drive-thru, which, according to McDonald's, will include vehicle tracking to detect when customers get close to the restaurant so their orders can start being prepared and accuracy scales that will weigh bags before they are handed over to ensure the contents match what was on the ticket. 

The move is an interesting one, considering McDonald's previously tested AI technology in its drive thrus over a six-month period using Dynamic Yield personalization features across 12,000 U.S. locations, then again in 2022 via a partnership with IBM, a company well-known for its AI experimentation. The two-year test with IBM that involved automated order taking ended in July 2024, with the partnership not being renewed and the technology being removed. Though McDonald's did not provide a specific reason for the change, customers and some news outlets alleged it was due to costly order inaccuracies.

In May 2025, McDonald's announced a bold new growth strategy that included the formation of a Restaurant Experience Team. Along with that comes a closer look at the menu and customer preferences. If you were among the many McDonald's customers excited by the return of the Snack Wrap in July 2025, get ready for more chicken-based items. 

Despite McDonald's building its early reputation around hamburgers, customers in 2026 may see their local menus starting to revolve more around chicken. In the Q3 earnings call, CEO Chris Kempczinski noted that the Snack Wrap's reintroduction was a huge hit and that the launches for the Chicken Big Mac in the United Kingdom and the McWings in Australia both exceeded profit expectations. Noting that chicken is a larger market globally than beef is, he also said that McDonald's would be continuing to test limited-time items and expanding the chicken category in general. 

In addition to chicken sales in general in the U.S. reaching a three-year high in 2025 thanks to inflated beef costs, the McDonald's move is even less surprising given the rise in popularity of fast food chicken chains such as Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, and Raising Cane's both in the U.S. and around the world. The shift at McDonald's is already underway with the introduction last spring of McCrispy Strips to the chain's permanent menu. At the end of December 2025, Chicago-area customers took to Reddit to share that McDonald's was testing a new hand-breaded variety of those McCrispy Strips.