Iceland Central Bank of Iceland key interest rate
Iceland Central Bank of Iceland key interest rate is 8 percent, in force since 19 Aug 2026. It was 7.75 percent before that. Last checked against the official source on 11 Sep 2026.
The Central Bank of Iceland's (Seðlabanki Íslands) key interest rate, defined by the Bank as the rate on seven-day term deposits of credit institutions at the Bank. Set by the Monetary Policy Committee (peningastefnunefnd) under the Act on the Central Bank of Iceland no. 92/2019, in pursuit of the 2.5% inflation target. Iceland is in the EEA but is NOT an EU member and NOT in the eurozone: it runs a fully independent monetary policy in its own currency, the króna. The MPC announces decisions eight times a year (six of them in 2026), on Wednesdays at 08:30, with a press conference and, four times a year, the Monetary Bulletin.
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| Current value | 8 percent |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2026-08-19 |
| Official source | Seðlabanki Íslands — Statement of the Monetary Policy Committee, 19 August 2026: 'The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Iceland has decided to raise the Bank's interest rates by 0.25 percentage points. The Bank's key interest rate – the rate on seven-day term deposits – will therefore be 8.00%. Four Committee members voted in favour of the decision, while one voted to keep rates unchanged.' The Bank's frontpage rate box shows 8.00% 'Valid from: 19 August 2026', next update 07 October 2026. |
| Last verified | 2026-09-11 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
DIRECTION CORRECTION vs the common assumption. A common account says Iceland 'has been easing'. That was true through 2025 and is NOT true now: the MPC reversed and is TIGHTENING. Iceland cut five times in 2025 to 7.50% (21 May 2025), held in August and October 2025, cut once more to 7.25% (19 Nov 2025), held at 7.25% on 4 Feb 2026 — and then HIKED twice: +25bp to 7.50% on 18 Mar 2026 (the first increase since 2023, 3 members for 25bp, 2 preferring 50bp) and +25bp to 7.75% on 20 May 2026 (unanimous). Rationale: headline inflation stuck above 5% (5.2% in June 2026) against a 2.5% target, underlying inflation at its highest in more than a year, rising inflation expectations, higher public levies, second-round effects and January wage increases — even as activity indicators soften. The MPC has signalled it is prepared to tighten further. NOT THE SAME THING: the 'key rate' is specifically the SEVEN-DAY TERM DEPOSIT rate; the Bank simultaneously publishes a corridor of other rates (current account rate, overnight lending rate, seven-day collateralised lending rate, overnight CBI rate) which are higher or lower and must not be served as the policy rate. Effective date convention: the Bank's rate box states the new rate is valid from the announcement date itself (20 May 2026). Next scheduled decision: 19 August 2026 — this series should be re-checked then. ACCESS PROBLEM for the source-watcher: cb.is article pages render client-side and come back EMPTY to a plain HTTP fetch/markdown converter. The machine-readable substitute that does work is the Bank's own English RSS feed at https://cb.is/api/documents/views/articles/RSS-feed-english/rss, whose item descriptions carry the full first paragraph of each MPC statement including the rate and the vote. Point the watcher at the RSS feed, not the article HTML. UPDATE (roll applied 2026-08-21): Third consecutive hike of the tightening cycle (+25bp on 18 Mar, 20 May, and 19 Aug 2026); this one was 4-1, with one member voting to hold — no longer unanimous. Next scheduled MPC decision: 7 October 2026 (per the frontpage rate box 'Next update'); re-check then. Retrieval unchanged: article pages are a Blazor client-side shell (empty to plain fetch, and the interest-rate-decision-dates page is too) — the English RSS feed at https://cb.is/api/documents/views/articles/RSS-feed-english/rss carries the full statement first paragraph including rate and vote, and the frontpage HTML does contain the rate box text (grep for 'Valid from').
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-05-20 | 7.75 | Seðlabanki Íslands — Statement of the Monetary Policy… |
| 2026-03-18 | 7.5 | Seðlabanki Íslands — Statement of the Monetary Policy… |
| 2025-11-19 | 7.25 | Seðlabanki Íslands — Statement of the Monetary Policy… |
| 2025-05-21 | 7.5 | Seðlabanki Íslands — Statement of the Monetary Policy… |
| 2025-03-19 | 7.75 | Bank for International Settlements - Central Bank Policy… |
| 2025-02-05 | 8 | Bank for International Settlements - Central Bank Policy… |
| 2024-11-20 | 8.5 | Bank for International Settlements - Central Bank Policy… |
| 2024-10-02 | 9 | Bank for International Settlements - Central Bank Policy… |
| 2023-08-23 | 9.25 | Bank for International Settlements - Central Bank Policy… |
| 2023-05-24 | 8.75 | Bank for International Settlements - Central Bank Policy… |
| 2023-03-22 | 7.5 | Bank for International Settlements - Central Bank Policy… |
| 2023-02-08 | 6.5 | Bank for International Settlements - Central Bank Policy… |
Get it programmatically
curl https://euroref.dev/v1/is/policy-rate
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://euroref.dev/v1/is/policy-rate/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/is/policy-rateOther Iceland series: Statutory default interest (dráttarvextir) · Virðisaukaskattur (VSK / VAT) standard rate · VAT registration threshold · General statutory minimum wage (none — structural null) · Public holidays (frídagar og helgidagar) · CPI inflation (vísitala neysluverðs, twelve-month change) · Tekjuskattur lögaðila · Withholding tax rates · Tekjuskattur og útsvar einstaklinga · Statutory social-insurance contributions · Central Bank of Iceland reference exchange rates
The same figure elsewhere: Ireland · Italy · Latvia · Lithuania · Luxembourg · all 34