Overnight stays at hotels in Iceland in May were approximately 432,000 or 0.9% more than in 2025 when they were roughly 428,000, according to preliminary data from Statistics Iceland.
Overnight stays increased most in the South region or by 15.2%. In the North there was also 6.3% growth. In other regions the number of overnight stays decreased and by most in the West and Westfjords (-15.8%). In the Southwest there was a decrease of 6.0%, 3.3% in the East and 3.2% in the Capital region. In the first five months of the year the total number of overnight stays at hotels was nearly unchanged from a year ago as there was only a 0.5% increase year over year.
Foreign overnight stays in hotels were approximately 377,000, or 87% of total overnight hotel stays, which was a 1.8% increase from the previous year. Domestic stays decreased by 4.4% from a year ago to total nearly 55,000. Most of all overnight stays belonged to citizens of the USA (125 thousand) and in May those decreased by 2.5% compared with the same month in 2025. Also, the number of overnight stays of visitors from the UK (26 thousand) fell by 12.7%. However, overnight stays of tourists from Germany (44 thousand) and France (22 thousand) increased by 13.5% and 11.4%, respectively. Lastly, stays of Chinese tourists (18 thousand) increased by 40.4%.
Overall supply of hotel bedrooms increased by 2.1% in the country in May. The greatest increase was in the South (13.4%). In the Capital region there was a slight increase of 0.8% but in other regions the supply decreased. In the West and Westfjords the number fell by 7.0%, by 5.4% in the Southwest, 2.5% in the North and 0.9% in the East region. Overall, there were 181 hotels operating in May 2026 with a total of 12,532 rooms which was a moderate increase from a year ago when there were 178 hotels operating in the country. A total of 59 hotels operated in the Capital region in May with a total of 5.667 rooms and 54 in the South with 3.197 rooms.
All accommodations
When all accommodations are considered the estimated total number of registered overnight stays in May were roughly 713,000. This was 1.9% lower than in May of 2025 when overnight stays were nearly 727,000. Most of overnight stays were registered in hotels and guesthouses or nearly 544,000 (roughly 432,000 in hotels and roughly 111,000 in guesthouses). The rest, or nearly 170,000, was attributable to other types of accommodation (camping sites, cottages, etc.).
In addition to the publishing of accommodation statistics for May 2026, data in web tables has been updated with new and final numbers for the year 2025 for hotels and guesthouses, other accommodations (camping and others), and all accommodation establishments in total.
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 May 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.