Overnight stays at hotels in Iceland in August were approximately 653,000 or 2.5% fewer than in 2025 when they were nearly 670,000, according to preliminary data from Statistics Iceland.
Overnight stays decreased most in the Capital region or by 5.3% which was a decline of nearly 16,000 stays. The number of overnight stays also declined by nearly 6,000 in the South, or 3.2%, and 3.6% in the East. In the Southwest region, overnight stays increased by 6.9% while 4.3% growth was also in the West and Westfjords region. Lastly, a modest 0.9% increase was in the North. In the first eight months of the year the total number of overnight stays at hotels was 0.3% lower than at the same time a year ago.
Foreign overnight stays in hotels were approximately 607,000, or 93% of total overnight hotel stays, which was a 1.8% decrease from the previous year. Most overnight stays belonged to citizens of the USA (226 thousand) and in August those increased by 10.2% compared with the same month in 2025. The number of overnight stays of visitors from Germany (55 thousand) declined by 9.7% and from Italy (39 thousand) by 11.3%. However, hotel overnight stays of Chinese visitors (40 thousand) increased by 6.5%. Domestic stays decreased by 10.0% from a year ago to a total of nearly 46,000.
Overall supply of hotel bedrooms increased by 1.7% in the country in August. The greatest increase was in the North (6.1%) while in the Southwest there was a 3.7% increase. In the South region the number of rooms grew by 1.1% and by 1.0% in the West and Westfjords. In the Capital region, there was a modest growth of 0.9% but in the East the supply remained unchanged. In total, there were 186 hotels operating in August 2026 with a total of 12,817 rooms which was a modest increase from a year ago when there were 182 hotels operating in the country. A total of 59 hotels operated in the Capital region in August with a total of 5.670 rooms and 55 in the South with 3.223 rooms.
Occupancy rates of hotel rooms decreased by 1.1 percentage points overall in the country in August. Rates decreased most in the North or by 4.7 percentage points and in the Capital region by 3.1 percentage points. Occupancy rates also fell in the East by 0.8 percentage points. On the other hand, there was a 5.0 percentage points increase both in the Southwest and the West and Westfjords region. In the South there was also 0.4 percentage points increase. In August the highest occupancy rates were in the South (93.5%) and the Southwest (91.7%) regions.
All accommodations
When all accommodations are considered the total number of registered overnight stays in August were roughly 1,549,000. This was 3.3% higher than in August of 2025 when overnight stays were roughly 1,500,000. Most overnight stays were registered in hotels and guesthouses or roughly 845,000 (roughly 653,000 in hotels and roughly 192,000 in guesthouses). The rest, or approximately 704,000, was attributable to other types of accommodation (camping sites, cottages, etc.).
About the data
Numbers for all accommodations other than hotels are preliminary for 2026. Thus, data for hotels and guesthouses combined are preliminary for 2026 as is data for all types of accommodation in total. Data on overnight stays at hotels are preliminary for August 2026.
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.