Overnight stays at hotels in Iceland in December were nearly 300,000 or approximately 11.4% fewer than in 2024 when they were nearly 339,000, according to preliminary data from Statistics Iceland. Overnight stays decreased in most regions and proportionally most in the East region by 27.2%. Significant decrease was also in the West and Westfjords (-17.6%) and the Capital region (-16.4%). In addition, there was a 5.1% decline in the South. On the other hand, the number of overnight stays increased by 11.2% in the North and 9.6% in the Southwest.
Overall, overnight stays decreased by nearly 39 thousand in December with most of it (36 thousand) coming in the Capital region while the net decline from other regions was 3 thousand. In 2025 however, the overall total number of overnight stays in the country increased by roughly 171 thousand or 3.3% overall.
Foreign overnight stays in hotels were approximately 267,000, or 89% of total overnight hotel stays, which was a 9.2% decrease from the previous year. Domestic stays decreased by 25.8% from a year ago to total roughly 33,000. Most of all overnight stays belonged to citizens of the United States of America (63 thousand) and in December those decreased by 25.7% compared with the same month in 2024. Overnight stays by other nationalities varied, with the United Kingdom (59 thousand) falling by 10.3% while Chinese overnight stays increased by 23.5% to total 34 thousand. In 2025 overall, the number of foreign overnight stays in hotels increased by a total of 8.8%. Domestic stays, however, declined by 27.7% during the same time.
Overall supply of hotel bedrooms increased by 1.5% in the country in December. The greatest increase was in the South (8.6%) while little to no growth was in the Capital region (0.4%) and East (unchanged). However, the number of bedrooms declined in the Southwest (-5.1%), West and Westfjords (-2.3%) and North (-1.9%). In total, there were 166 hotels operating in December 2025 with a total of 11,773 rooms which was a moderate increase from a year ago when there were 163 hotels operating in the country. A total of 58 hotels operated in the Capital region in December with a total of 5,554 rooms and 50 in the South with 2,992 rooms.
Occupancy rates of hotel rooms decreased by a total of 6.8 percentage points for the whole country. Rates decreased most in the Capital region (-12.4 percentage points). Considerable decreases were also in the South (-6.2 percentage points), East (-4.4 percentage points) and West and Westfjords (-3.1 percentage points). On the other hand, occupancy rates increased by 9.4 percentage points in the Southwest and 2.0 percentage points in the North. In December the highest occupancy rates were still in the Capital region (58.4%) and the Southwest (54.3%).
All accommodations
When all accommodations are considered the total number of registered overnight stays in December were nearly 399,000. This was 9.9% lower than in December of 2024 when overnight stays were roughly 442,000. Most of overnight stays were registered in hotels and guesthouses or 338,000 (300,000 in hotels and 38,000 in guesthouses). The rest, or approximately 61,000, was attributable to other types of accommodation (camping sites, cottages, etc.). In 2025 the estimated total number of overnight stays in all types of accommodation was 10,160,000 which was 9.1% more than in 2024.
About the data
All numbers for 2025 are preliminary except data on overnight stays at hotels which are preliminary for December 2025.
Data registered from accommodations can include number of overnight stays that are not attributable to any nationality. In such cases, the data is distributed proportionally onto already recorded nationalities.