A restaurant guide that began as a reason to drive
The most famous restaurant rating in the world carries the name of a tire maker. That is not a coincidence or a licensing deal. The guide was a tire company's idea from the start, and it still belongs to that company.
In 1900 there were fewer than 3,000 cars in France. The brothers André and Édouard Michelin, who made tires in Clermont-Ferrand, needed people to drive more. So they gave drivers a free book telling them, in André's words, where to fill the tank, repair the car, sleep and eat. More driving meant more worn tires, and more worn tires meant more sales. That was the bet, as CNN's account of the guide's history puts it. The same account notes there is no evidence the guide actually raised tire sales.
The book stayed free until 1920. Michelin's own explanation for why it began charging, which the company itself calls an anecdote, is that André found copies propping up a workbench in a garage. Stars came later. The guide gave its first single stars in 1926 and moved to the one-to-three scale in 1931.
Does the guide make Michelin money?
Nobody outside Michelin knows. The company's published financial results do not show the guide's results separately. The figure most often cited is old and secondhand : in 2011 the Financial Times reported, as relayed by Toronto Life, that the guides were losing about $24 million a year. It says nothing about the guide's finances today.
So the honest answer to why a tire company still runs it is the one it started with. The guide was a way to put the Michelin name in front of people who travel. Whether it pays for itself today is not something the company's published results show.
How a star is decided, in Michelin's own words
Michelin says its stars are decided only by its inspectors, who are full-time employees with backgrounds in restaurants and hotels. They book under assumed names, eat like any other customer and pay the bill in full. Each one eats more than 250 anonymous meals a year, and a restaurant is visited as many times as it takes before a decision.
The company names five criteria : the quality of the ingredients, the harmony of flavors, mastery of technique, the chef's personality coming through in the food, and consistency across the menu and over time. Michelin also states that inclusion in the guide is free of charge, and restaurants can ask to be visited. Asking does not guarantee a visit, and all of this is Michelin's description of its own process, not an outside audit of it.
Who pays for the inspectors to come to town
Restaurants do not pay. But in many of the places Michelin has added in the last decade, someone else has helped : the local or national tourism board, paying Michelin to bring the guide there.
The Washington Post reported in 2017 that the Seoul guide, first published in 2016, was commissioned by Korea's tourism organization under a contract worth 3.2 billion won over several years, more than $1 million. The Korea Times, relaying a Korean lawmaker's account, gave a different figure, about 2 billion won through 2020. The tourism organization did not disclose the amount, so neither figure is confirmed. CNN reported that Thailand's tourism authority offered a 144 million baht partnership, about $4.4 million, to bring the guide to Bangkok in 2017, under a deal reported to run for five years.
The first deal in the United States came in 2019, when Visit California paid at least $600,000 to take the guide beyond the Bay Area to the whole state. The board said the money would underwrite the cost of expanding the presence of Michelin inspectors. Since then, Axios has reported, tourism boards in Miami, Tampa and Orlando agreed to pay $1.5 million, and Atlanta $1 million. Colorado's state tourism office committed a sum Axios put at $300,000, while local boards such as Denver, Boulder and Aspen paid separately, between $70,000 and $100,000 each. For Texas, Axios gave $900,000, but a Texas visitor bureau's board records describe the state and five of its cities sharing $2.7 million over three years. In 2026 Visit Indy said it was paying $150,000 in the first year of a three-year deal for the new Great Lakes guide.
Michelin rarely discusses the terms. A company spokesperson told Axios she could not, citing competitive reasons.
- The Washington Post : South Korea paid big money to commission its Michelin guide
- The Korea Times : Credibility of Michelin Guide Seoul questioned
- CNN : Michelin Guide Bangkok 2017
- The Peak : Michelin Guide Bangkok, good or bad?
- San Francisco Chronicle : What's behind the $600,000 California tourism deal
- Axios Richmond : Virginia declines Michelin Guide deal
- Irving Convention and Visitors Bureau : Board packet, August 2024
- Axios Indianapolis : Indianapolis joins Michelin restaurant guide
What a tourism board says it is buying
The boards are open about the reason. Visit Indy said it was paying "to ensure the guide launches, giving our local restaurants the opportunity to be reviewed," and called it an investment in attracting visitors. In other words, the money helps put a place on Michelin's map, with a chance at a verdict. It does not come with the verdict.
Nor does the money start the process on its own. In a statement reported by Axios, Michelin said it does not begin partnership talks unless it judges an area's dining scene developed enough to explore. So a board is not buying a first look from nothing. It is helping pay to publish and widen coverage of a place Michelin has already judged worth exploring. No source on the record shows whether Michelin would have come anyway without the money, or come as soon.
Michelin describes the arrangement from its side too. Its guide director told The New York Times, as Axios reported, that the partnership money helps offset the cost of the review process. Sending inspectors to eat anonymously and repeatedly in a new city is expensive, and in these places the city's tourism board covers part of that bill.
A place can say no, and some guides were never paid for
Not every board signs. In 2025 Virginia's tourism office told Axios it had turned down a deal that would have cost $360,000, or $120,000 a year for three years, to join Michelin's new American South guide, citing the responsible use of taxpayer money. The states that did join that guide committed a combined $1.65 million a year for three years. A few Virginia restaurants near Washington are still covered, as part of the Washington guide.
And the guide's oldest American editions did not start this way. According to The Washington Post in 2017, the guides to New York, Chicago, Washington and San Francisco received no sponsorship from tourism agencies. Michelin's first US guide, for New York, came out in 2005, more than a decade before the first paid American deal.
- Axios Richmond : Virginia declines Michelin Guide deal
- Axios Richmond : Virginia and the Michelin Guide's American South
- San Francisco Chronicle : What's behind the $600,000 California tourism deal
- The Washington Post : South Korea paid big money to commission its Michelin guide
- Wikipedia : Michelin Guide
Michelin says the money stops at the inspectors' door
Michelin's answer to the obvious worry has been the same for years. In 2019 its international director, Gwendal Poullennec, said tourism board involvement "does not bear any influence whatsoever regarding the inspectors' judgments for the restaurants in the selection, or the star awards," and compared the arrangement to the wall between editorial and advertising at a newspaper. In 2017 a Michelin executive told The Washington Post that the sponsorship deals were handled by a separate team from the inspectors.
Reporters have raised the question many times. None of the reporting cited here documents a star given in exchange for money, though that is a finding about this reporting, not proof that influence is impossible. What it documents is narrower : in many newer places, whether and when a city's restaurants are covered has depended in part on a tourism board agreeing to help pay, once Michelin judged the place worth exploring. That is Michelin's own description, not an accusation.
The question to ask of any Michelin map
So a tire company decides which restaurants get stars because a tire company built the guide, to send drivers down the road, and has kept it ever since. What has changed is who helps pay for the trip. In many newer cities a tourism board covers part of the cost of the guide coming, after Michelin has judged the place worth a look. The stars are still, by every account on the record, Michelin's call.
That changes how to read a map full of stars. A city with no stars may not have been judged and found wanting. It may simply sit outside the guide's coverage. Before comparing two cities, it is worth asking whether the guide covers both, and whether a tourism board helped pay for it to come.
