Iceland state pay swells at top, Alþingi briefing shows breadth of high earners

• The lowest pay on the list was just over ISK 1.5 million a month; the highest reached ISK 6.6 million.
• Health-sector staff are prominent, with doctors and nurses heavily represented among top earners.
• The ranking also includes judges, ministry permanent secretaries, professors, police, coast guard staff and nearly 100 upper-secondary teachers.
• The data was compiled for Alþingi’s Economic Affairs and Trade Committee during work on a bill covering pay-setting for elected officials and senior officeholders.

More than 2,000 Icelandic state employees and officeholders received monthly pay above ISK 1.5 million in the year from April 2025 to March 2026, according to a briefing prepared by the Financial Management Authority for Alþingi. Writing in RÚV, the public broadcaster reports that the highest monthly pay on the list was ISK 6.6 million for the executive director of the Westfjords Healthcare Institution, while the lowest was just above ISK 1.5 million for a resident doctor at Landspítali, Iceland’s national university hospital.

The striking part is not only the ceiling but the width of the band. RÚV reports that nearly 100 upper-secondary teachers appear on the list, along with 63 professors, ambassadors, ministers, members of parliament, judges, police officers and staff from the Icelandic Coast Guard. In late May, RÚV had already reported that doctors made up 89 percent of the 250 highest earners. The broader Alþingi briefing shows that once the ranking is extended beyond that top tier, high state pay runs through much of the specialist core of the public sector.

Monthly pay for permanent secretaries in several ministries sat between just under ISK 2.5 million and just over ISK 2.6 million, roughly the same level as nine cabinet ministers. Judges at the Court of Appeal received more than ISK 2.4 million, while the National Commissioner of Police for the capital area, senior officials at the Financial Management Authority, the Iceland Revenue and Customs service and the Road and Coastal Administration were above ISK 2.3 million. Prosecutors were clustered around ISK 2 million. The president’s private secretary and ministerial aides were around ISK 1.8 million, while President Halla Tómasdóttir was listed at ISK 4.2 million, the highest pay among elected officeholders.

Health care still dominates the upper reaches. Alongside doctors, nurses and hospital executives, RÚV reports that six nursing assistants made the list, and the highest-paid one at Landspítali earned about the same as the highest-paid upper-secondary teacher: ISK 2.258 million a month. That is a pay scale more often associated with a bidding war than with a standard civil-service ladder. In a small labour market, where specialist staff can emigrate or move into private roles, the state appears to be paying up to keep wards staffed, aircraft crewed and courtrooms running.

The briefing was requested by Alþingi’s Economic Affairs and Trade Committee as part of its work on a bill from the finance minister to change how pay for elected representatives and senior officials is updated. That produced a document meant to illuminate one corner of the pay system and instead exposed a much larger one. The list starts at ISK 1.5 million a month and still has room for librarians, museum directors and members of parliament near the thousandth place.

Källor: RÚV