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Höfn í Hornafirði

What the new Hornafjörður toll does to the Ring Road week

From 1 September 2026 the 19 km Hornafjörður section is tolled by camera at 1,500 ISK a trip. For the seven-day loop that is one certain crossing and one probable one.

The short answer: the seven-day Ring Road ledger now carries a toll it did not have in August. For a car under 3.5 tonnes it is 1,500 ISK per crossing, read by camera, and the week makes one certain crossing and probably a second. Budget 3,000 ISK and be pleased if it is 1,500. Nothing else in the ledger moves, except that the Vík to Höfn day is about 14 km shorter than the old road made it.

The facts, with their dates

From Vegagerðin's notice of 31 August 2026, "Tolls collected on Ring Road 1 in Hornafjörður from September": tolling on the new section began on 1 September 2026. Collection is automated. Cameras at the edges of the tolled section read the number plate, the owner is looked up in the vehicle register, and a monthly bill goes to the registered owner's online bank. Spölur ehf, the company that collected the Hvalfjörður tunnel toll until 2018, runs the collection. The price list for vehicles under 3.5 tonnes: 1,500 ISK for a single trip, 950 ISK per trip at two to five trips in a month, 750 ISK per trip from six, and a monthly maximum of 18,750 ISK. Vehicles of 3.5 to 7.5 tonnes pay 2,100 ISK a trip; over 7.5 tonnes, 4,500 ISK with no discount. The notice says the list "is designed to be updated regularly". Spölur's own price list on spolur.is, read on 1 November 2026, shows the same figures, and its single-trip page lets anyone pay a one-off crossing within 24 hours of driving through, with no discount on that route.

What the section is, from Vegagerðin's opening notice of 24 June 2026: nearly 19 km of new Ring Road plus about 9 km of other roads, four two-lane bridges (Djúpá 52 m, Hornafjarðarfljót 250 m, Hoffellsá 114 m, Bergá 52 m, 468 m in all), opened to traffic at 15:00 that day at an estimated cost of around 10 billion ISK. The Ring Road is 12 km shorter and the road into Höfn about 14.6 km shorter. A new roundabout joins the Ring Road to Hafnarvegur, the road into town, and to Nesjahverfi. The ministry's release of the same day gives the headline as twelve kilometres saved and three fewer single-lane bridges.

What it does to the seven-day ledger

Day 2 runs Vík to Höfn, 270 km, arriving from the west across Skeiðarársandur and the new bridges: a certain crossing. Day 3 leaves Höfn eastwards for Egilsstaðir. Whether that departure passes a camera depends on where the eastern cameras sit relative to the Höfn roundabout, and neither Vegagerðin notice nor Spölur's site says. Until a map of the zone is published, count two crossings, 3,000 ISK at the single-trip rate.

The ten-day ledger has the same two days in the same order, so the same count. The twelve-day Faroes-and-Iceland ledger is the one that pays most: Day 10 runs Vík to Höfn and Day 11 runs Höfn back to Vík, two certain crossings, and the Höfn roundabout question does not arise because the car never goes east. The South Coast and Golden Circle ledger turns at Jökulsárlón, 80 km short of the section, and pays nothing. The Westfjords, North and Highlands ledgers never come near it.

Whether the old road around the fjord stays open as a free alternative is not stated in either notice. It was about 14 km longer and carried the single-lane bridges the new road was built to remove; at the ledger's 80 km/h that is ten minutes plus the bridges, which is already most of the value of 1,500 ISK.

Hire cars

The bill goes to the registered owner, which for a hire car is the hire company; neither notice addresses foreign-registered or hire vehicles. Two ways to handle it. Ask at the desk whether the firm bills the toll after the hire and with what handling fee, which is how the Vaðlaheiði tunnel has worked since it opened. Or pay the single trip yourself on spolur.is within 24 hours of crossing and keep the receipt with the rental papers. The second route is cheaper if the firm charges a fee, and it is the one the Spölur page was built for.

One more thing the dates tell you: the 31 August notice says the per-trip payment page was "still in development" and would launch within the week. It was live on 1 November. A ledger written on 30 August would have said the section was free, and been right.

Sources

The ledgers this post refers to

  1. Iceland Ring Road in 7 days

    Anticlockwise from Keflavík: about 1,555 km and 19.5 hours at the wheel in seven days, with nights in Vík, Höfn, Egilsstaðir, Mývatn, Akureyri and Borgarnes.

    7 days · Iceland
    1,555 km · 19 h 35 driving
    Checked 1 Nov 2026
  2. Iceland Ring Road in 10 days with Snæfellsnes

    The 7-day loop plus Snæfellsnes, a second east night and the full Diamond Circle: about 2,160 km and 27.5 hours of driving, with a half-day kept for weather.

    10 days · Iceland
    2,160 km · 27 h 40 driving
    Checked 1 Nov 2026
  3. Iceland and the Faroe Islands by ferry, 12 days

    Copenhagen to Hirtshals, two nights on the Norröna, three days of Faroese roads, then Seyðisfjörður to Keflavík by north and south: 2,519 km, 36 h driving, 47 h at sea.

    12 days · Iceland + Faroe Islands + Denmark
    2,519 km · 36 h 05 driving · 47 h 30 ferry
    Checked 1 Nov 2026