Business Registers in Iceland: Skatturinn (Fyrirtækjaskrá)

Overview

Iceland keeps its company information in a single register, the Fyrirtækjaskrá (the Company Register), run by Skatturinn, the Directorate of Internal Revenue (Ríkisskattstjóri). The same agency runs the Register of Annual Accounts (Ársreikningaskrá), so company profiles and financial statements come from one source. The register is free to search and open to the public.

Iceland is one of the more transparent jurisdictions for KYB work. Beneficial ownership is published directly on the company's register page, with no login or special access, which is unusual in Europe. Annual accounts are also publicly available, and the register carries activity codes and the company's legal representatives. Iceland is in the European Economic Area but not the European Union, so its entities have an Icelandic VAT number rather than an EU VAT identifier.

The one identifier to know is the kennitala. Iceland uses it as the national identification number for both individuals and companies. For a company, the first six digits encode its founding date, with 40 added to the day, which is how a company kennitala (starting with 4 to 7) is told apart from an individual's. The last digits include a serial number and a century marker.

Official Registers

Skatturinn Company Register (Fyrirtækjaskrá)

The Skatturinn company register is the single source of company data in Iceland. A free public search accepts the kennitala or a company name and returns the company's profile page, which carries the legal name, legal form, status, registered address, founding date, activity codes, the registered representative, and the beneficial ownership section.

Iceland uses the ÍSAT activity classification, which follows the NACE system, so a company's sector is available as a structured code rather than free text. Each company also has a free registration overview document (Gjaldfrjálst yfirlit) that sets out the fuller picture, including the board and other key persons beyond the single representative shown on the page.

Beneficial Ownership

Iceland maintains a beneficial ownership register under Act No. 82/2019 on measures against money laundering and terrorist financing, and the data is shown openly on the company's register page. Both direct and indirect owners are listed, with the ownership percentage where available. Where no individual holds a qualifying stake, the board may instead be recorded as the beneficial owners under a "management registered as owner" marking, so the listed names can be the directors rather than true economic owners. Public limited companies (hf.) listed on the stock exchange are exempt from the disclosure and have no beneficial ownership section.

Financial Statements

The Register of Annual Accounts (Ársreikningaskrá) holds the annual accounts that Icelandic companies file. These are publicly available as PDF documents covering the filed fiscal years, so balance-sheet and income data is part of the public record rather than kept private.

Registration and Publication Requirements

Companies

The einkahlutafélag (ehf.) is Iceland's private limited company and the most common form, requiring a registration filing with Skatturinn. Its beneficial owners are disclosed on the register page. The hlutafélag (hf.) is the public limited company, used for larger and listed businesses; a listed hf. is exempt from beneficial ownership disclosure because its shares trade publicly. Both are governed by a board, with roles such as stjórnarformaður (chairman of the board), stjórnarmaður (board member), and framkvæmdastjóri (managing director), and may appoint a prókúruhafi (authorised signatory).

Partnerships and Cooperatives

The sameignarfélag (sf., general partnership) and the samvinnufélag (svf., cooperative) register with Skatturinn and disclose their beneficial owners under Act 82/2019, the same as private limited companies.

Sole Proprietorships

A sole proprietorship (einstaklingsfyrirtæki) trades under an individual operating through their own kennitala. It has a basic public profile and no separate board or ownership structure.

Associations

Associations (félag) are non-profit forms carried in the register with a basic public profile. They do not carry shareholder data.

Summary

With Topograph

Topograph retrieves Icelandic company data live from the Skatturinn company register.

Available Data

Company Profile

• Legal name with the kennitala and VAT number
• Legal form in Icelandic, with a standardized English category
• Status, active (Virk) or closed (Afskráð)
• Registered address and founding date
• Activity codes in the Icelandic ÍSAT classification, mapped to NACE

Legal Representatives

• The full board and other key persons, including chairman, board members, managing director, and authorised signatories, drawn from the registration overview rather than only the single representative shown on the page

Beneficial Owners

• Ultimate beneficial owners from the register's own disclosure, with ownership type and percentage where available; not available for listed public limited companies, which are exempt

Shareholders

• Shareholders reconstructed by AI from the annual accounts and registration overview; verify against the source documents before relying on them for compliance, since this is not structured register data

Available Documents

Iceland is in the EEA but not the EU, so its VAT number is national and not validated through EU VIES. Beneficial ownership, by contrast, is published openly by the register, which makes Iceland unusually direct to verify.

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