Police checks and fines in Iceland with a rental car: off-road driving, speed and drink-driving

Iceland applies three speed tiers depending on the surface and area: 50 km/h in towns and villages, 80 km/h on gravel roads outside built-up areas, and 90 km/h on paved roads outside built-up areas. That last figure often surprises travellers used to 110 or 130 km/h motorways elsewhere in Europe: Iceland has no motorway in the strict sense, and Route 1 (the Ring Road) that circles the country stays capped at 90 km/h on its paved stretches.

The change in surface, often signposted rather than visibly obvious on the road itself, is a real point of vigilance: moving without warning from a paved road onto gravel at 90 km/h is a frequent cause of rental cars running off the road, well ahead of any police check.

This is the Icelandic peculiarity worth knowing before getting behind the wheel: driving off marked roads and tracks is banned across the entire country under Article 31 of the Nature Conservation Act (lög um náttúruvernd, no. 60/2013). The ban covers any motor vehicle — rental 4x4s included — on volcanic moss, lava fields, riverbeds, black-sand beaches or highland vegetation, including shortcuts between two points on an F-road or detours around a difficult river crossing. F-roads themselves aren't off-road: they are marked, legally driveable routes, as long as you stay on them.

Fines issued by police vary by case, the extent of the damage found and the circumstances, but confirmed cases generally run into hundreds of thousands of Icelandic krónur (ISK), with a risk of criminal prosecution for serious damage to a protected site. The reason for this severity: Iceland's subarctic vegetation, extremely slow to regrow on volcanic soil, takes decades to heal a single set of tyre tracks. A systematic review published in 2021 in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (Ploughe & Fraser, covering 105 field studies) confirms that off-road vehicle tracks durably compact soil and delay plant recolonisation long after vehicles stop passing, an effect particularly marked in cold, slow-growing ecosystems (study: doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.805707).

The rule of thumb is simple: stay strictly on the road or the marked track at all times, even for a photo or a U-turn, and use signposted car parks near natural sites rather than pulling over onto open ground.

Unlike a flat penalty, the amount of a speeding fine in Iceland is set by an official table that cross-references the posted limit against the measured speed, laid out in Regulation no. 1240/2019 and updated periodically by the transport authority (Samgöngustofa). In practice, the fine climbs with the excess recorded, from a sum in the tens of thousands of ISK for a small excess up to over 100,000 ISK for a large one, with a risk of licence suspension for the steepest excesses.

Speed cameras, fixed and mobile, are spread across the busiest routes, notably Route 1 around Reykjavík and the Golden Circle: they flash without stopping the driver, which changes how the fine eventually reaches a traveller in a rental car (see below).

Iceland's legal blood alcohol limit was lowered from 0.05% to 0.02% (0.2‰) under the Road Traffic Act (umferðarlög no. 77/2019), one of the lowest thresholds in Europe — in practice, an almost zero tolerance that a single drink is often enough to exceed. A positive check above that limit carries a fine starting at 100,000 ISK, a licence withdrawal, and a risk of criminal prosecution that can lead to prison for high readings or repeat offences.

Random breath tests are carried out at ordinary roadside checkpoints, even without any accident or visible offence: better not to get behind the wheel after a craft beer tasting in Reykjavík or a wine-heavy dinner out in the countryside.

During a live stop, Icelandic police can request payment of the fine on the spot. For an offence caught by an automatic camera — the most common case for a tourist, whether a speeding violation or off-road driving photographed by a bystander or a surveillance drone — the notice is sent to the vehicle's registered owner, meaning the rental agency. The agency identifies the driver through the rental agreement and forwards the fine several weeks after the trip, usually adding its own administrative fee on top.

This process explains why it isn't unusual to receive a fine by email months after getting home: keeping a copy of the rental agreement and checking the 'traffic offence fee' clause before signing helps avoid surprises on the final amount.

An Icelandic road check covers the same documents as anywhere else in Europe: driving licence, ID or passport, rental agreement and the insurance certificate issued by the agency. Licences issued in the EU and EEA are valid as they are, with no extra paperwork. For other nationalities, an International Driving Permit is recommended alongside the national licence whenever the latter isn't written in the Latin alphabet or doesn't carry a photo — worth checking before booking the rental.

As elsewhere, keeping these documents within reach in the glovebox rather than buried under luggage makes for a smoother check, which on the tourist routes of the Golden Circle or Route 1 tends to stay brief and courteous once the paperwork is in order.