Population figures
Total country population
377,689
Forcibly displaced population
Refugees (under UNHCR's mandate):
8,821
Asylum-seekers:
2,195
IDPs (of concern to UNHCR):
0
Other people in need of international protection:
0
Other
Statelessness persons
9
Host community
0
Others of concern to UNHCR
0
Country context
Iceland is a Nordic island nation situated at the juncture of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, immediately south of the Arctic Circle and east of Greenland, with no land borders but maritime boundaries adjacent to Norway, Denmark (Faroe Islands) and the United Kingdom (Shetland Isles). Domestic asylum procedures are governed by the Foreign Nationals Act (No. 80/2016), which consolidates entry, stay and removal provisions for all non-nationals and establishes a structured process for international protection claims. Under this Act, applications for asylum may be submitted at any police station or, upon arrival, at Keflavík Airport or the reception centre in Reykjavík. Those seeking international protection in Iceland originate from the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Venezuela, among other regions, reflecting diverse displacement contexts. Asylum-seekers and recognized refugees reside in community-based reception facilities—primarily in and around Reykjavík and Akureyri—or in private accommodation.
Iceland acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in 1955 and to its 1967 Protocol in 1968. In view of the country’s geographic isolation and given the fact that there are no direct flight connections from any main country of origin of asylum-seekers, Iceland is seldom a “first country of asylum.” Consequently, many asylum-seekers who apply for asylum in Iceland are transferred to another Dublin country, under the Dublin II Regulation.
...Iceland has neither acceded to the 1954 Convention nor to the 1961 Convention. However, Iceland has already taken on obligations in relation to statelessness in other more general human rights instruments as well as the 1997 European Convention on Nationality. There is no definition of “stateless” in Icelandic law as well as legal provisions and guidelines on the criteria and procedures to be used to determine whether an individual is actually stateless. Instead, authorities such as the National Police or Directorate of Immigration are responsible for registering a person as “stateless”. Iceland has a relatively small number of stateless persons. The largest groups known to be registered as stateless are a) asylum-seekers who have been granted asylum in Iceland and are not able to present a passport; b) resettled Palestinian refugees from Iraq; and c) persons of the Russian minority from Latvia presenting an alien’s passport when immigrating to Iceland.
Legal advancements in recent years include the comprehensive overhaul of immigration and asylum rules through the 2016 Foreign Nationals Act, which introduced clear procedural pathways and an independent appeals mechanism; and the 2021 accession to both statelessness conventions, marking a normative step toward protecting stateless individuals. In addition, amendments to the Act in 2022 incorporated the EU Temporary Protection Directive, extending immediate legal stay and work rights to persons displaced from Ukraine, thereby integrating regional protection standards into domestic practice.
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