Why McDonald's was closed for several hours

McDonald's restaurants across Australia were majorly impacted by a global outage on Friday.

Many stores across the country reported to be closed or unable to take orders from about 4.30pm, while McDonald's in New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan and the UK all also faced similar issues.

A statement from McDonald's blamed a "technology outage" and confirmed it "wasn't related to a cybersecurity event" but the exact cause of the disruption is not yet known.

READ MORE: Macca's hit by massive outage

Has McDonalds re-opened yet?

About 10.45pm, McDonald's Australia told followers on social media that "most" stores across the country were back up and operational.

"Most restaurants have now re-opened and are serving up all your faves," they said in a short statement.

"A huge thank you to our customers and our hard-working crew for their patience, we're sorry for the inconvenience."

Why is McDonald's closed?

Some McDonald's stores closed about 4.30pm after an IT outage left staff unable to take payments.

Other stores stayed open and were able to continue taking orders while only their internal systems used to transmit orders shut down.

What caused the McDonald's outage?

The cause of the technology outage has not yet been revealed by McDonald's.

"We are aware of a technology outage currently impacting our restaurants nationwide and are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible," Macca's said in a statement.

"We apologise for the inconvenience and thank customers for their patience."

Was McDonald's hit by a cyberattack?

In an update about 9pm, McDonald's said "the issue is not related to a cybersecurity event".

"We can confirm some restaurants are back online and serving customers, and we are continuing to work to restore all remaining restaurants as soon as possible," a spokesperson said.