Iceland has 186 hotels with 12,817 rooms.
Capital Region occupancy: 89%
Overnight stays, capacity & occupancy rates across all regions
In Aug 2026, foreign visitors spent 607,025 nights in Icelandic hotels, down 1.8% on the same month of 2025. Over the trailing twelve months that adds up to 4.88 million foreign hotel nights, up 0.8% year on year. National hotel occupancy stood at 88.7% (-1.1 points versus a year earlier), with the Capital Region at 89.0%. Iceland's 186 hotels offer 12,817 rooms, and the average foreign visitor stays 1.93 hotel nights per trip.
Figures are for hotels only (not guesthouses or short-term rentals), from Statistics Iceland. Charts below break the numbers down by month, region and source market.
Statistics Iceland surveys every registered hotel in the country each month and publishes the number of guest nights by nationality, the number of rooms available, and the share of those rooms that were sold. This page uses the hotel series only. Guesthouses, hostels, campsites and short-term rentals such as Airbnb are counted in a separate survey, so the overnight-stay totals here are lower than Iceland's total accommodation volume. Hotels remain the largest single category and the one with the longest consistent history, which makes it the best series for tracking trends.
Occupancy is the share of available room-nights that were sold during the month. It is driven by both demand and supply: a month can show falling occupancy even as guest nights rise if new hotels opened. The capacity figures show that supply effect directly. Capacity itself is seasonal, because a number of hotels outside the capital open only for the summer, which is why room counts are higher in July than in January.
Nights per visitor divides foreign hotel nights by foreign passenger arrivals in the same month. It is an indicator of how visitors are accommodated rather than a true length of stay, since many travellers mix hotels with other lodging. A falling ratio usually means a shift toward rentals and guesthouses, or shorter trips, rather than fewer people. Regional figures use Statistics Iceland's eight statistical regions; the Capital Region holds close to half of all hotel rooms in the country and consistently records the highest occupancy.
In August 2026, 88.7% of available hotel rooms in Iceland were sold, compared with 89.8% in the same month a year earlier. Over the whole of 2025, the last complete year, occupancy averaged 67.2%. That is high by European standards and reflects a country where hotel supply has struggled to keep pace with demand since the mid-2010s.
In 2025, occupancy averaged 86% in June to August and 52% in December to February. The best month was August at 89.8% and the weakest December at 45.3%. The winter gap has narrowed over the past decade as northern-lights and ice-cave tourism grew, but hotels outside the capital still close or run near-empty in the darkest months.
Capital Region led in 2025 with an average of 74.7%, followed by South (68.6%) and Reykjanes (68.3%). The lowest was West & Westfjords at 45.6%. The capital benefits from year-round business and conference travel as well as tourists who base themselves in Reykjavík for day trips.
Statistics Iceland counted 186 hotels with 12,817 rooms in Aug 2026. The count moves with the season because some hotels outside the capital open only for the summer. Guesthouses, hostels, campsites and short-term rentals are surveyed separately and are not included in these figures.
Occupancy is room-nights sold divided by room-nights available in the month, across every registered hotel. It is a measure of how full hotels are, not of how many people visited: a month can show lower occupancy with more guests if new hotels opened. Statistics Iceland publishes the figure about four weeks after the month ends.
Year-over-year comparison
Occupancy rates & overnight stays by region
Number of hotels, rooms, and beds · YoY change
| Region | Hotels | ± | Rooms | ± | Beds | ± |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capital region | 59 | -1 | 5,670 | +50 | 12,466 | +4 |
| South | 55 | +2 | 3,223 | +34 | 7,141 | -30 |
| Northeast | 21 | +1 | 1,288 | +85 | 2,810 | +217 |
| Reykjanes | 17 | +2 | 988 | +35 | 2,119 | +50 |
| West | 19 | 877 | +10 | 1,894 | +36 | |
| East | 10 | 428 | 919 | +27 | ||
| Northwest | 3 | 182 | 413 | |||
| Westfjords | 2 | 161 | 561 | |||
| Total | 186 | +4 | 12,817 | +214 | 28,323 | +304 |
Overnight stays by nationality · YoY change
Overnight stays per visitor · Top 6 source markets
Average overnight stays per foreign arrival
Total hotel rooms by year
Icelandic guests · Annual totals
Hotel data includes only traditional hotels that are open year-round. Occupancy rates measure room utilization as a percentage of available capacity. 2025 figures are preliminary.