Overnight stays at hotels in Iceland in April were nearly 366,000 or approximately 1.8% fewer than in 2025 when they were roughly 372,000, according to preliminary data from Statistics Iceland.
Overnight stays decreased in all regions except in the South where they increased by 4.0%. Proportionally the greatest decrease was in the North and East regions where they fell by 8.9% and 8.8%, respectively. In the West and Westfjords overnight stays dropped by 6.8% and by 1.2% in the Southwest. In the Capital region hotel overnight stays decreased by roughly 5,000 or 2.7%. In the first four months of the year the total number of overnight stays at hotels was nearly unchanged from a year ago as there was only a 0.6% increase year over year.
Foreign overnight stays in hotels were approximately 319,000, or 87% of total overnight hotel stays, which was a 2.4% decrease from the previous year. Domestic stays increased by 2.4% from a year ago to total nearly 47,000. Most of all overnight stays belonged to citizens of the USA (81 thousand) and in April those decreased by 6.6% compared with the same month in 2025. Also, the number of overnight stays of visitors from the UK (41 thousand) fell by 14.4% and by 9.0% for German visitors (26 thousand). However, stays by Chinese tourists (18 thousand) increased by 31.6%.
Overall supply of hotel bedrooms increased by 5.4% in the country in April. The greatest increase was in the East (26.2%) and South (16.1%). In the Capital region there was a more moderate increase of 3.9% but in other regions the supply decreased. In the Southwest the number fell by 5.4%, by 2.5% in the North and 1.3% in the West and Westfjords region. In total, there were 177 hotels operating in April 2026 with a total of 12,562 rooms which was a moderate increase from a year ago when there were 170 hotels operating in the country. A total of 59 hotels operated in the Capital region in April with a total of 5.771 rooms and 54 in the South with 3.196 rooms.
Occupancy rates of hotel rooms decreased by a total of 3.3 percentage points for the whole country. Rates decreased in all regions except in the Southwest where the occupancy rate increased by 3.6 percentage points. The greatest decrease was in the East where occupancy rates fell by 13.9 percentage points. In the South the rates decreased by 6.1 percentage points, in the West and Westfjords by 3.5 percentage points while in the Capital region there was a 2.3 percentage points decrease and 2.1 percentage points drop in the North. In April the highest occupancy rates were in the Southwest (65.7%) and the Capital region (59.7%).
All accommodations
When all accommodations are considered the total number of registered overnight stays in April were nearly 544,000. This was 0.8% lower than in April of 2025 when overnight stays were nearly 548,000. Most of overnight stays were registered in hotels and guesthouses or 414,000 (nearly 366,000 in hotels and nearly 49,000 in guesthouses). The rest, or approximately 130,000, was attributable to other types of accommodation (camping sites, cottages, etc.).
About the data
Numbers for all accommodations other than hotels are preliminary for 2025 and 2026. Numbers for hotels and guesthouses combined are preliminary for 2025 and 2026 as is data for all types of accommodation in total. Data on overnight stays at hotels are preliminary for April 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.