Overnight stays at hotels in Iceland in September were roughly 544,000 or approximately 6.0% more than in 2024 when they were nearly 513,000, according to preliminary data from Statistics Iceland. Overnight stays increased in all regions except the Southwest where they stayed nearly unchanged (-0.2%). The greatest increase was in the South (15.0%) but significant growth was also in the East (8.4%), North (6.8%) and West and Westfjords region (6.8%). In the Capital region the number of overnight stays increased by only 1.6%. Overall, overnight stays increased by nearly 4 thousand in the Capital region and nearly 27 thousand in other regions combined, of which roughly 20 thousand were in the South.
Foreign overnight stays in hotels were roughly 494,000, or 91% of total overnight hotel stays, which was a 11.2% increase from the previous year. Domestic stays decreased by 27.8% from a year ago to total approximately 50,000. Most of all overnight stays belonged to citizens of the United States of America and in September those increased by 1.2% compared with the same month in 2024. Overnight stays by other nationalities increased considerably, primarily Germany (12.3%), China (79.1%) and the United Kingdom (17.7%). In the first nine months of the year foreign overnight stays in hotels increased by a total of 12.1%. Domestic stays, however, declined by 27.4% during the same months.
Overall supply of hotel bedrooms increased by 2.6% in September. The greatest increase was in the South (12.6%) but in other regions the supply either fell or stayed unchanged. In the North the supply decreased by 3.4%, by 2.1% in the East and by 1.5% in the West and Westfjords. In the Capital region the number of hotel bedrooms increased by 0.4% but stayed unchanged in the Southwest. In total, there were 180 hotels operating in September 2025 with a total of 12,400 rooms which was a moderate increase from a year ago when there were 176 hotels operating in the country. A total of 59 hotels operated in the Capital region in September with a total of 5,564 rooms and 53 in the South with 3,182 rooms.
Occupancy rates of hotel rooms increased in all regions and by a total of 3.1 percentage points for the whole country. Rates increased most in the North (8.8 percentage points) but considerable growth was also in the East (6.8 percentage points). In the West and Westfjords region occupancy rates rose by 3.5 percentage points and by 3.0 percentage points in the South. In the Capital region there was a growth of 1.7 percentage points but in the Southwest there were little changes (0.4 percentage points increase). In September the highest occupancy rates were in the South (86.0%) and the Capital region (84.4%).
All accommodations
When all accommodations are considered the total number of registered overnight stays in September were roughly 1,121,000. This was 10.2% higher than in September of 2024 when overnight stays were roughly 1,017,000. Most of overnight stays were registered in hotels and guesthouses or nearly 704,000 (544,000 in hotels and 160,000 in guesthouses). The rest, or approximately 418,000, was attributable to other types of accommodation (camping sites, cottages, etc.). In the first nine months of the year, accumulated overnight stays totalled 8,467,000 which was 9.0% more than during the same period in 2024.
Revision of data categorisation by nationality
Revisions of data on overnight stays by nationality have now been finalised for hotels and guesthouses and are expected to close by next publication in November for other accommodations. It should still be noted that all numbers on overnight stays are preliminary and can change from month to month. 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, as data on overnight stays by nationality is used as input in estimating the number of unlisted overnight stays it is not possible to publish those results on for September 2025.
About the data
All numbers for 2025 are preliminary except data on overnight stays at hotels which are preliminary for September 2025.