Overnight stays at hotels in Iceland in August were roughly 667,000 or approximately 9.6% more than in 2024 when they were nearly 609,000, according to preliminary data from Statistics Iceland. Overnight stays increased in all regions and proportionally most in the South (20.5%). Moderate growth was in other regions with 7.3% increase in the East, 6.3% in the Southwest and 6.2% in the Capital region. In the North there was 5.1% growth and 3.6% in the West and Westfjords. Overall, overnight stays increased by nearly 18 thousand in the Capital region and nearly 41 thousand in other regions combined, of which roughly 31 thousand were in the South.
Foreign overnight stays in hotels were roughly 616,000, or 92% of total overnight hotel stays, which was a 12.1% increase from the previous year. Domestic stays decreased by 13.6% from a year ago to total approximately 51,000. Most overnight stays belonged to citizens of the United States of America which, however, decreased by 0.8% in August compared with the same month in 2024. Overnight stays by other nationalities increased considerably, primarily Germany (14.7%), Italy (20.2%) and China (56.3%). In the first eight months of the year, foreign overnight stays in hotels increased by a total of 7.9 %. Domestic stays, however, declined by 4.5% during the same months.
Overall supply of hotel bedrooms increased by 4.0% in the country in August. The greatest increase was in the South (13.9%). In the West and Westfjords region supply grew by 4.0% and 2.3% in the North. Little changes were in the Capital region (0.7%) and in the Southwest the number remained unchanged. In the East, supply of hotel bedrooms declined by 2.1%. In total, there were 182 hotels operating in August 2025 with a total of roughly 12,600 rooms which was a moderate increase from a year ago when there were 177 hotels operating in the country. A total of 60 hotels operated in the Capital region in August with a total of 5.620 rooms and 53 in the South with 3.189 rooms.
Occupancy rates of hotel rooms increased in all regions and by a total of 3.6 percentage points for the whole country. Rates increased most in the East (10.0 percentage points) but considerable growth was also in the Southwest (5.6 percentage points) and North (4.7 percentage points). In the South occupancy rates rose by 3.2 percentage points and 3.0 percentage points in the Capital region. Lastly, rates grew by 0.8 percentage points in the West and Westfjords. The highest occupancy rates in August were in the South (93.3%) and the Capital region (92.2%).
All accommodations
When all accommodations are considered the total number of registered overnight stays in August were roughly 1,606,000. This was 11.4% higher than in August of 2024 when overnight stays were roughly 1,442,000. Most of overnight stays were registered in hotels and guesthouses or nearly 893,000 (667,000 in hotels and 226,000 in guesthouses). The rest, or approximately 713,000, was attributable to other types of accommodation (camping sites, cottages, etc.). In the first eight months of the year accumulated overnight stays totalled 7.345,000 which was 8.8% more than during the same period in 2024.
Revision of data categorisation by nationality
Data on overnight stays by nationality is currently undergoing revisions. While this analysis is in process limited amount on data by nationality will be published. As of this publication only data on hotel overnight stays includes categorisation by nationality. It should also be noted that all data is preliminary and can change in the coming monthly publications. Also, 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 on to already recorded nationalities.
Furthermore, data on overnight stays by nationality is used as input in estimating the number of unlisted overnight stays. For that reason, it is also not possible to publish results on the number of unlisted overnight stays for the month of August 2025.
The revisions are expected to close by the next publication in October at which time all data on overnight stays will be fully accessible.
About the data
All numbers for 2025 are preliminary except data on overnight stays at hotels which are preliminary for August 2025.