How many Americans actually visit Iceland, and why this year looks strange

Americans are Iceland’s largest market by a distance: 661,929 of them left through Keflavík in 2025, 29.2% of all foreign visitors and almost three times as many as the British, who come second. In the first eight months of 2026 the count is 470,463 — within 0.7% of last year. That flat line hides the interesting part. January was down 27.4% and June down 20.6%, while August was up 27.2%, when Americans made up a third of everyone leaving the island.

No other country comes close

The United States sends more visitors to Iceland than the next four markets combined. The Icelandic Tourist Board counts departing foreign passengers at Keflavík, which it says handles roughly 98.7% of all visitors, and has broken them down by nationality since 2002.

The UK, Germany, China and France together sent 612,512 — still 49,000 fewer than the US alone. The American peak in the series was 2018, at 694,814; last year was about 4.7% below it.

A flat year with a jagged line

Month by month, 2026 has swung harder than the annual total suggests. The first two months were well down, spring was up, June fell sharply and August rose sharply. Added together they cancel out almost exactly.

The bars show the size of each month’s swing, not its direction; the figures carry the sign. The tourist board publishes the counts, not the reasons, and we are not going to invent any. What the pattern does say is that a single month’s headline about Americans “abandoning” or “flooding” Iceland is worth very little on its own.

Who is growing instead

The markets rising fastest this year are the other English-speaking ones. British visitors are up 10.4% to 166,241 in the first eight months, and Canadians up 25.0% to 74,956. The large continental European markets are slipping: Germany down 2.6%, France down 6.1%.

How many Americans visit Iceland each year?

661,929 in 2025, according to the Icelandic Tourist Board’s Keflavík departure counts — 29.2% of all foreign visitors.

Which country sends the most tourists to Iceland?

The United States, by a wide margin. The UK is second with 229,183 visitors in 2025, about a third of the American figure.

Is Iceland getting fewer American visitors in 2026?

Roughly the same number: 470,463 from January to August, 0.7% below the same months of 2025, though individual months have swung by more than 20% in both directions.

Source: Icelandic Tourist Board, departures of foreign passengers through Keflavík Airport, 2002–2026 series updated for August 2026. Shares, ratios and the comparison with 2018 are our arithmetic from those figures.

Cover photo: David Stanfield via Pexels (Pexels License). Section photos: Lekko Ponad via Pexels (Pexels licence); Stephen Leonardi via Pexels (Pexels licence); ArtHouse Studio via Pexels (Pexels licence).