Driving in Iceland in Winter: Rules, Tyres and Insurance

Driving in Iceland in winter is manageable if you do three things: check the road and weather services every single morning, take the insurance that covers gravel and wind, and turn back when the authorities say to. People die on Icelandic roads in winter every year, and the pattern is rarely exotic: a visitor drives into conditions that were already forecast, on tyres they never asked about, in a car they paid the minimum to insure.

This guide covers what the law actually requires, which insurance matters and why, how to read the roadside weather signs, and where to get conditions before you set off. I drove Iceland’s south coast in February with my father, and one day of that week we did not drive at all, because the authorities advised against it. That is the single most useful thing on this page.

If you would rather somebody else did the driving, GetYourGuide runs guided winter day trips along the same routes with drivers who do this professionally. Take a look at their offer in Iceland.

What to know when driving in Iceland in February

The rules and the services you need are set out below. Everything else on this page expands on one of them.

Why visit Iceland in winter?

Winter is the only season in which you can see the northern lights and go inside an ice cave, and those two things are why people come in February rather than July. It is also the quiet season on the south coast, the light is low and long all day rather than for an hour, and prices outside Christmas are lower.

What you pay for it is daylight and conditions. In late December you get four to five hours of usable light; by February it is up to about eight. The roads are the other cost, and that is the rest of this page.

Do you need a rental car in Iceland in winter?

No, and that is a real answer rather than a hedge. Guided day tours from Reykjavík reach the Golden Circle, the south coast, the ice caves and the northern lights, and on a winter day the professional driver is the product: they know the road, they have the conditions before you do, and they cancel when they should.

Hire a car if you want to stop where you like, if you are travelling with people who will not tolerate a coach timetable, or if you are going beyond the standard circuit. Do not hire one because it looks cheaper, because once you add the insurance you actually need, it often is not.

Can you drive in Iceland in winter?

If you are comfortable driving in snow and ice at home, yes. If you have never driven on ice, Iceland in February is not where you learn, and there is no shame in booking tours instead.

Be honest about three things before you decide. Wind is the hazard most visitors underestimate and it is the one that damages cars. Ice you cannot see is the one that puts them off the road. And short daylight means that a delay of two hours turns a scenic drive into a night drive on an unlit road.

Which side of the road does Iceland drive on?

Iceland drives on the right. If you normally drive on the left, the two moments that catch people out are pulling out of a car park and the first roundabout of the day, both of which come after you have stopped concentrating.

Roundabouts here have a rule worth knowing: on a two-lane roundabout, the inner lane has priority over the outer when exiting. This is the opposite of what drivers from several other countries expect and it causes a disproportionate number of collisions in Reykjavík.

Quick dos and don’ts

The short version is below. Each has its own section further down.

1. Do check umferdin.is and en.vedur.is every morning, before you get in the car.
2. Do keep your headlights on, day and night, all year.
3. Do hold the door when you open it, with the car parked into the wind.
4. Do slow right down where tarmac turns to gravel, which is where a lot of accidents happen.
5. Do not drive off-road, ever, anywhere. It is illegal and the fines run into thousands.
6. Do not pass a closed-road sign. “Lokað” means closed, and the authorities close roads only when they have to.
7. Do not drive into a red weather warning. The Met Office’s own advice on one is that travel is not advised.

What licence do you need to drive in Iceland?

A full licence from your home country, held for at least a year and issued in the Roman alphabet, is accepted in Iceland. If your licence is in another script you will need an International Driving Permit alongside it, and some hire companies will ask for one regardless, so check with yours before you fly.

You must be at least 20 to hire a car in Iceland, and most companies add a young-driver surcharge for drivers under 25.

Hiring a car in Iceland in winter

What car should you drive in Iceland?

A four-wheel-drive SUV is the right car for an Icelandic winter, and the reason is not snow so much as everything else. Car parks have serious potholes, almost every road that is not Route 1 is gravel or worse, and the wind pushes a small car around in a way you feel through the wheel. We saw ordinary cars on the ring road and we were glad not to be in one.

Consider an automatic. Ours was, and in a week of icy road surfaces and potholes the thing you want least is another decision to make with your left hand. Some people prefer a manual for engine braking on ice, which is a fair argument. It is your call.

Ask what tyres the car is on when you collect it, and do not assume. The Icelandic regulation on vehicle equipment requires a minimum of 3 mm of tread on a car’s tyres through the winter period. Studs are a separate question, covered below.

Studded tyres: the actual rule

Studded tyres are permitted in Iceland from 1 November to 15 April, and prohibited outside that window. They are not compulsory. Using them outside the permitted period carries a fine of 20,000 ISK per tyre (about €143, $166, £123), which the Icelandic traffic fine calculator lists under Article 85, so a full set costs 80,000 ISK.

Within that window, whether you want them depends on where you are going and when. Studs give real grip on ice and packed snow and are noisier and less good on wet tarmac. If the forecast is icy for your dates, ask the hire company: most can supply them, and several fit them as standard for the season.

The city of Reykjavík actively discourages studs because of the dust and road wear they cause, so a car without them is not a car that has been fobbed off on you.

Car insurance in Iceland, and which parts matter

Icelandic car insurance is more complicated than anywhere else in Europe, because more things can go wrong here. The covers are sold individually, which means it is easy to arrive at the desk and be talked into a bundle you do not understand. Book ahead, read the packages, and decide before you land.

Here is what the layers actually are.

CDW comes as standard with every hire and reduces your liability for collision damage, but the excess is high enough to ruin a trip on its own. SCDW, super collision damage waiver, is the same cover with a much lower excess, and it is the one most people should take.

Gravel protection is the one I would not travel without. It covers the windscreen, the headlights, the mirrors and chipped paintwork against flying stones, and Iceland’s roads throw stones constantly. Gravel damage is the single most common claim on an Icelandic hire car.

Sand and ash protection covers paintwork stripped by wind-driven sand and volcanic ash, which sounds far-fetched until you have seen it. My father watched a storm on a previous trip sandblast the paint off one side of a car parked near a beach, in summer. It matters most on the black sand plains of the south coast, Mýrdalssandur and Skeiðarársandur, in high winds.

Theft protection is close to unnecessary. Theft in Iceland is rare enough that we left a camera backpack open on the back seat with lenses visible, repeatedly, and nothing ever happened.

To put numbers on it, these were Lagoon Car Rental’s published daily rates when I checked them on 11 September 2026:

We hired from Lagoon Car Rental, an Icelandic company, and took their mid-tier package, which we did not have to use. Their current insurance packages are set out here. Prices change, so treat the table as the shape of the decision rather than a quote.

The thing no package covers is wind damage to a door. That is the next section, and it is the most expensive mistake a visitor can make with an Icelandic hire car.

Wind, and the two most common damage claims

Gravel and wind-damaged doors are the two things that most often cost visitors money on an Icelandic hire car, and only one of them is insurable.

Doors

Icelandic wind will tear a car door off its hinges, and no rental insurance package covers it. This is not a colourful warning; it is a routine claim and the repair is a new door and new hinges.

SafeTravel, the safety service run by ICE-SAR, gives the drill in its own words: “I check the wind direction and park the car so the door is against the wind. I hold the door tightly and open one door at a time.” That is the whole technique. Park nose or tail into the wind so the doors open on the sheltered side, keep a hand on the door the entire time it is open, and never let passengers all pile out at once on the windward side.

Gravel

Gravel is the other. Loose stone gets thrown up by your own wheels and by oncoming cars, and it chips paint, cracks windscreens and breaks headlights. The rules are simple: slow down hard where tarmac becomes gravel, move well right when meeting a car on a narrow gravel road, and buy the gravel cover.

Do not assume that damage underneath the car will go unnoticed. Rental companies here check the underside on return and they know what reckless gravel driving looks like.

How to read Iceland’s roadside weather signs

Iceland puts electronic weather signs on the roads, and being able to read one is a genuinely useful skill. Each sign carries three numbers.

1. Sustained wind, with direction and speed in metres per second. “N 17” means a sustained northerly at 17 m/s. The Icelandic compass letters are N for north, S for south, A for austur, east, and V for vestur, west, so A and V are the two that catch visitors out.
2. Temperature in degrees Celsius. At 3°C (37°F) or below, assume there is ice on the road, including in places that look merely wet.
3. Gust speed, which is a different and higher number than the sustained wind.

Two rules of thumb are worth carrying, and they are rules of thumb rather than law. Above about 20 m/s sustained (72 km/h, 44.7 mph) is serious wind and a good reason to stop. Many Icelandic drivers will not continue when gusts reach 30 m/s (108 km/h, 67.1 mph).

If the sign shows “Óveður”, that means storm. Stop.

For the same information before you set out, the Icelandic Met Office’s own wind forecasts use a colour scale that shades purple above 22 m/s and red above 28 m/s, which gives you a visual sense of a forecast at a glance.

Check the road conditions before you set off

Iceland’s road conditions site is now umferdin.is. The old address, road.is, redirects there, so a guide that sends you to road.is is not wrong, just out of date. It is run by the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration and shows the state of every stretch of road, updated continuously, with closures marked.

There is also a 24-hour telephone service on 1777 if you would rather ask a person or you have no data. That number is answered by the road administration’s own watch station.

Check it in the morning before you leave and again before any long leg. Conditions here change within hours, not days.

Check the weather conditions in Iceland

The Icelandic Met Office at en.vedur.is is the other site to open every morning. It carries forecasts, wind maps and the colour-coded warning system, and it also carries the aurora forecast, which is the reason to keep the tab open in the evening as well.

Take a red warning seriously. On a red warning the Met Office’s own published advice is that travel is not advised, and those warnings are issued for things like southerly storms with gusts widely in the 35 to 45 m/s range and locally above 50.

We lost a day to exactly this. A storm came through, we checked both sites through the morning, the advice was not to drive, and we spent the day at the hotel. Nothing dramatic happened to anybody. That is what a good outcome looks like.

Reaching someone in an emergency

The emergency number in Iceland is 112. Programme it into your phone before you drive anywhere.

Download the free 112 Iceland app, which sends your GPS position to the emergency services when you press the emergency button, and can leave a location trail during the day so search and rescue can find you. Both features are the reason the app exists.

Leave a travel plan with safetravel.is, ICE-SAR’s service, if you are going anywhere remote or off the main road. It is free, it takes two minutes, and it means somebody knows where you should be.

On coverage: Iceland’s mobile network is good along the ring road and through the populated coast, and thin in the highlands and parts of the Westfjords. Iceland is in the EEA, so EU roaming rules apply here and an EU or EEA SIM works at domestic rates within your fair-use limit. If you are coming from outside Europe, or you expect to burn through your allowance on maps, weather and road conditions, an eSIM is the cheap fix. Check out Airalo here. Use the code HARRY5578 for €3 off your first eSIM.

Speed limits and the rules you can be fined for

The Icelandic Transport Authority’s limits are below, and they are maximums for perfect conditions rather than targets.

• 50 km/h (31 mph) in built-up areas, often 30 km/h (18.6 mph) in residential streets and 60 km/h (37.3 mph) on urban throughways.
• 80 km/h (49.7 mph) on rural gravel roads.
• 90 km/h (55.9 mph) on rural paved roads.

Speed cameras are widely used alongside police enforcement, fines run well into six figures in krónur, and leaving the country does not cancel the fine. Where you see a blue square sign with a white number, that is a recommended maximum for the conditions, which will often be lower than the legal limit.

Three more legal points that catch visitors out:

• Headlights must be on at all times, day and night, all year. Set them manually rather than relying on an automatic setting.
• Everyone wears a seatbelt, in every seat. Icelandic fatal accidents are disproportionately roll-overs, where a belt is the difference.
• Hands-free is compulsory for phone calls, and using a handheld phone or tablet at the wheel carries heavy fines.

Iceland’s different roads, and what to expect in winter

Route 1, the ring road, is paved almost all the way round and is the road this itinerary uses. It is also single-carriageway, unlit, and exposed.

Single-lane bridges are common on Route 1, marked “Einbreið brú”. Slow to 50 km/h on the approach, and the rule is that the vehicle nearer the bridge has right of way. In practice, stop, look, and work out what the other driver intends before you commit.

Blind rises, marked “Blindhæð”, are the other Route 1 feature that kills people. The road goes over a crest with no separated lanes and you cannot see what is coming. Move right and slow down. Blind curves work the same way.

Where tarmac becomes gravel is the classic accident spot in Iceland, according to the Transport Authority’s own guidance: drivers do not slow before the changeover, the tyres lose grip, and the car goes off. Loose gravel on the shoulder of a paved road does the same thing.

F-roads are closed in winter and that is not negotiable. These are the mountain tracks into the interior, they require a 4×4 by law, they involve unbridged river crossings, and they open between late May and mid-July depending on the route and the snow. The Road and Coastal Administration publishes the opening dates each spring; over 2021 to 2025, Kjalvegur opened between late May and early June, Fjallabaksleið nyrðri between late May and late June, and Sprengisandur between late June and mid-July. In February there is nothing open in the highlands.

Stick to the south

The south coast is the sensible winter route and there is no shame in it. Route 1 from Reykjavík east to Jökulsárlón is paved, gritted, served by towns with fuel and beds, and cleared first when it snows. The Westfjords, the highlands and much of the north and east are a different proposition in February.

Our one-week winter itinerary follows that route day by day, and our guide to Reykjavík covers the city end of it.

Navigation

Google Maps works well in Iceland and the road network is simple enough that you will rarely need it for route-finding. What it will not tell you is whether a road is open, which is why umferdin.is is the site that matters.

Download offline maps for your route before you leave the hotel WiFi, because coverage thins out and a map that will not load is worse than no map. A paper road map of Iceland is worth the small cost as a backup, and it is better than a phone for understanding where you are in relation to the weather.

Common winter accidents and how to avoid them

Five things account for most of the trouble visitors get into.

1. Mind the doors

Covered above, and the most expensive: wind damage to doors is not covered by any insurance package. Park into the wind, hold the door, open one at a time.

2. Skidding on ice

If the car starts to slide, look and steer where you want to go, and brake firmly if you have ABS. Almost every car you will hire in Iceland has anti-lock brakes, and with ABS the correct response is to brake hard and keep steering; the system will do the pumping for you and the pedal will shudder, which is normal. The old advice to pump the brakes yourself applies only to cars without ABS, which is not the car you will be driving.

The thing to avoid is the panic reaction: slamming on and then wrenching the wheel. Ease off, steer where you want the car to end up, and do not make a second input until the first one has taken effect.

The better answer is to never be going fast enough for it to matter. Black ice on an Icelandic road looks exactly like wet tarmac.

3. Check the tyres

Walk round the car and look at the tyres before each driving day. Icelandic road surfaces are hard on them, and a slow puncture from a pothole or gravel is the sort of thing you want to find in a car park rather than at dusk on Route 1.

Make sure at least one person in the car can change a wheel, and find the spare, the jack and the locking nut on day one rather than in the dark in a gale.

If you go on a super jeep tour you will see the driver letting air out of the tyres before going off-road, for grip. Do not do that with a hire car. You are not permitted off-road anyway, and deflating tyres without knowing what you are doing creates a different problem.

4. Gravel

Covered above. Slow down at the changeover, move right when meeting traffic, buy the cover.

5. Animals on the road

Sheep are the animal you will actually meet. They graze unfenced along Icelandic roads and they cross without looking, and where a ewe is on one side her lambs are often on the other, which means the second one will run out in front of you. Expect it.

Horses and cattle also stray onto roads. Reindeer exist only in the east of Iceland, so if you are driving the south coast you will not meet one; there are no deer in Iceland at all.

If you hit an animal, you can be held liable for it, so slow down where you see livestock and be especially careful in poor visibility.

Do not drive off-road or on closed roads

Off-road driving is illegal everywhere in Iceland and the fines run into thousands. The reason is that Icelandic vegetation and soil take decades to recover from a single set of tracks, and on lava moss the damage is effectively permanent.

A closed road is closed. “Lokað” is the word. Driving past a closure is illegal, it invalidates your insurance, and if you get stuck you will pay for the rescue. The authorities close roads here because conditions warrant it, not to be difficult, and the people who come to get you out are volunteers.

If you want an off-road adventure, go on a super jeep tour

You cannot hire a super jeep and drive it yourself. These are heavily modified vehicles on enormous tyres and they come with an experienced driver, which is the entire point: the skill being sold is reading a river, not operating the vehicle.

Joining a group tour is how most people do it. Book this tour for the Eyjafjallajökull and black beach safari, or book this tour for the Katla ice cave, which is winter-only. Hiring one privately with a driver is the flexible version if there are enough of you to share it.

We took a full-day super jeep trip into Þórsmörk, fording the glacial rivers, and it was the one day of the week that a hire car could not have delivered.

Fuel: where to find it and how to pay

Fill up when you are at half a tank rather than when the light comes on. On the south coast the gaps between stations are manageable; elsewhere in Iceland they are not, and a station that exists may be closed.

Most Icelandic pumps are unattended and card-operated, and this is the one that strands people: you need a card with a PIN. A signature-only card will not work at a self-service pump, and some pumps pre-authorise a large amount before dispensing.

The main networks are N1, Orkan and Olís. Fuel discount cards and key fobs from those chains knock a few krónur off a litre, they are free to pick up at a staffed station, and over a week of Icelandic driving that adds up to a meal. Ask for one when you first fill up.

Driving a campervan in winter

A campervan works in an Icelandic summer and is a much harder proposition in February. The wind is the problem: a high-sided van catches it, and in a gale you will feel the vehicle move underneath you both while driving and while parked.

If you do it, take a properly heated van rather than a converted car, plan to stay on serviced campsites, and accept that many campsites close for the winter. Most people are better off with a car and hotels.

What to keep in the car at all times

The list below covers a winter driving day on the south coast.

1. Warm layers and a waterproof shell for everybody, kept in the cabin rather than the boot, because if you are stuck you cannot get to the boot in a gale.
2. A headlamp, which in an Icelandic winter is not optional: the daylight runs out at 4pm and you will be walking to waterfalls in the dark.
3. An ice scraper with a brush end. Hire cars usually have one, and ours was not up to the job.
4. A phone mount, because handheld phone use at the wheel is illegal and heavily fined.
5. A charging cable and a power bank, since your phone is your map, your weather service and your emergency call.
6. Food and water for a day. Harðfiskur, chocolate and a full bottle. If a road closes behind you, you may be waiting.
7. A paper map as a backup.
8. The spare wheel, jack and locking nut, located and checked on day one.

Our full Iceland winter packing list covers what to wear rather than what to keep in the car.

Alternatives to driving in Iceland in winter

Four options, in order of cost.

1. Public transport. Strætó runs scheduled buses between the larger towns. Timetables are built for residents, so a day trip usually works in one direction only, and services thin out in winter.
2. Short group tours. Day trips from Reykjavík to the Golden Circle, the south coast, the ice caves and the northern lights. The cheapest way to see the standard circuit without a car, and the driver takes the weather decision. Check Iceland tours on GetYourGuide.
3. Multi-day guided tours. Three to seven days along the south coast with accommodation included. Expensive, and it removes every decision this page is about.
4. A private driver. The flexible version, and the most expensive, though it divides reasonably between four people.

Frequently asked questions

Is it safe to drive in Iceland in winter?

It is safe if you treat the road and weather services as instructions rather than suggestions. Check umferdin.is and en.vedur.is every morning, do not drive into a red warning, slow down for gravel and blind rises, and turn back when conditions change. The visitors who come to grief here are almost always people who drove into conditions that had already been forecast.

Do you need a 4×4 in Iceland in winter?

You are not legally required to have one on Route 1, and you want one anyway. The reasons are potholes, gravel, wind stability and the margin it gives you, rather than deep snow on the ring road itself. F-roads legally require a 4×4 and are closed all winter regardless.

Are winter tyres required by law in Iceland?

Tyres must have at least 3 mm of tread through the winter period, and every Icelandic hire company fits winter tyres for the season. Studded tyres are permitted, not required, from 1 November to 15 April, and using them outside that window costs 20,000 ISK per tyre. Ask the desk what your car is on.

What wind speed is too dangerous to drive in Iceland?

There is no single legal threshold. As a rule of thumb, sustained wind above about 20 m/s is a good reason to stop, and many Icelandic drivers will not continue when gusts reach 30 m/s. The authoritative answer is the Icelandic Met Office’s warning colour: on a red warning, its own advice is that travel is not advised.

Are F-roads open in winter in Iceland?

No. Iceland’s mountain F-roads are closed all winter and open between late May and mid-July depending on the route and that year’s snow. The Road and Coastal Administration publishes the opening dates each spring.

What is the emergency number in Iceland?

112. Download the free 112 Iceland app as well, which sends your GPS position to the emergency services and can leave a location trail, and leave a travel plan at safetravel.is if you are going anywhere remote.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

Five things from this week, and from checking the current rules, matter more than anything else on this page.

1. Be willing to lose a day. We did. A storm came through, both services advised against driving, and we stayed at the hotel and lost a day of the itinerary. Build the slack in when you plan, so that losing a day costs you a stop rather than a flight.
2. Park into the wind and hold the door. SafeTravel’s own instruction is to check the wind direction, park so the door is against the wind, hold it tightly and open one door at a time. Wind damage to doors is not covered by any insurance package sold here.
3. Take gravel protection, whatever else you skip. It covers the windscreen, headlights, mirrors and chipped paint, and gravel damage is the most common claim on an Icelandic hire car. At around 1,100 ISK a day it is the cheapest line on the sheet.
4. Bring a card with a PIN for the fuel pumps. Rural Icelandic stations are unattended and PIN-only. This is the single most common way a visitor gets stuck with a tank they cannot fill.
5. Ask which tyres the car is on at the desk. Studs are permitted from 1 November to 15 April and are not automatic, and the answer changes how fast you should be driving on ice.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes in this post come from the week she drove Iceland’s south coast in February with her father, the photographer Hans Couwenbergh, who had road-tripped the country previously. Rules, limits and services on this page are taken from the Icelandic Transport Authority, the Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration, the Icelandic Met Office and SafeTravel. The team covers Iceland for independent travellers, including the car hire, insurance and tours worth booking, and updates this page when rules and conditions change.