Overnight stays at hotels in Iceland in July were approximately 648,000 and unchanged from a year ago, according to preliminary data from Statistics Iceland.
Overnight stays increased most in the North region or by nearly 4.1%. Lesser growth was in the Southwest where they increased by 1.5% and in the South where the number grew by 1.0%. In the East overnight stays decreased by 2.3% and in the West and Westfjords region the drop was 0.8%. In the Capital region overnight stays fell by nearly 4.700 or 1.6%. In the first seven months of the year the total number of overnight stays at hotels was nearly unchanged from a year ago as there was only a 0.2% increase year over year.
Foreign overnight stays in hotels were approximately 593,000, or 92% of total overnight hotel stays, which was a 0.8% increase from the previous year. Domestic stays decreased by 8.3% from a year ago to total roughly 55,000. Most of all overnight stays belonged to citizens of the USA (206 thousand) and in July those decreased by 3.4% compared with the same month in 2025. The number of overnight stays of visitors from Germany (53 thousand) also declined by 4.6%. However, hotel overnight stays of UK visitors (34 thousand) increased by 4.7% and Chinese visitors (41 thousand) by 14.5%.
Overall supply of hotel bedrooms increased by 1.4% in the country in July. The greatest increase was in the North (5.4%). In the South there was also 3.8% increase while in the Capital region the supply of rooms grew by 0.9%. In other regions the number declined and most in the Southwest (-5.4%). In the West and Westfjords the decrease was 1.3% and 0.9% in the East. In total, there were 183 hotels operating in July 2026 with a total of 12,696 rooms which was a modest increase from a year ago when there were 181 hotels operating in the country. A total of 59 hotels operated in the Capital region in July with a total of 5,670 rooms and 55 in the South with 3,215 rooms.
Occupancy rates of hotel rooms were little change year over year and increased by only 0.1 percentage point. Rates increased most in the Southwest or by 5.9 percentage points. In the East they rose by 1.1 percentage points and by 0.9 percentage points in the West and Westfjords region. Decrease was in occupancy rates in the North by 2.4 percentage points and by 0.5 percentage points in the Capital region. In the South the rates were unchanged. In July the highest occupancy rates were in the South (92.8%) and the East (92.2%) regions.
All accommodations
When all accommodations are considered the total number of registered overnight stays in July were nearly 1,748,000. This was 4.4% higher than in July of 2025 when overnight stays were roughly 1,674,000. Most of overnight stays were registered in hotels and guesthouses or nearly 863,000 (roughly 648,000 in hotels and roughly 214,000 in guesthouses). The rest, or approximately 885,000, 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 July 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.