Picking up at Keflavík and dropping the car in Akureyri or Egilsstaðir is possible, but only with some operators, and outside the capital area it always carries a drop-off fee. That fee pays for driving the car back across the country. Whether it is worth it depends on what it replaces: two extra days of rental, several hundred kilometres of fuel, and a night's hotel.
A one-way rental means you collect the car at Keflavík Airport and hand it back somewhere else: the operator's Reykjavík office, Akureyri in the north, Egilsstaðir in the east, occasionally Höfn or Ísafjörður. You pay the normal daily rate plus a drop-off fee, and the operator takes on the problem of getting the car home.
That is the whole logic of one-way pricing. Iceland has no dense network of branches: a car left in Egilsstaðir sits several hundred kilometres from Keflavík, and someone must drive it back or wait for a customer going the other way. The fee is a repositioning cost with a margin, not an arbitrary surcharge.
Two things follow. Operators running a single desk at KEF often cannot offer one-way at all, having nowhere to receive the car. And where it is offered, price and availability track distance and demand — easy to arrange in July, impossible in November.
There is no fixed list, and it changes. The operators that can do one-way are the ones with staffed offices outside the southwest: the international brands, and the larger Icelandic firms with a branch in Akureyri. Comparison sites often show a one-way filter, but the terms belong to the supplying operator rather than the broker, so read the supplier's own conditions first. We do not list fees company by company: each operator sets its own and changes them without notice. Our page on car rental companies at Keflavík covers who is who at the airport.
Get these confirmed in writing before you book:
Fees are set per operator and per route, and they move; any figure printed here would be stale before you read it. What is stable is the shape of the pricing: it rises with distance, and the ranking below rarely changes. Distances are approximate, by the shortest sensible route; drive times assume summer conditions and no stops.
| Drop-off | Distance from KEF | Drive time | Where the fee sits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reykjavík city office | ~50 km | ~45 min | Often none, otherwise nominal |
| Akureyri | ~440 km | ~5–6 hrs | Mid band: a substantial flat charge |
| Höfn | ~510 km | ~6–7 hrs | Similar to Akureyri, where offered |
| Egilsstaðir | ~690 km | ~8–10 hrs | Top band, usually well above Akureyri |
Reykjavík is the outlier. Many operators treat a swap between KEF and their own city office as administrative and charge little or nothing, particularly on longer rentals — though not all do, so confirm rather than assume. Everything beyond that involves real driving and is priced accordingly. Availability swings hardest: thinner regional staffing in winter means a drop-off quoted in June may not appear in a December search at all.
Reykjavík city. Barely a one-way in spirit. The usual reason is that you are finishing with two or three days in the capital and do not want to pay for a car parked outside your hotel. It also means you are not driving Route 41 at dawn on your departure day. The trade is that you then need transport back to KEF, by coach or taxi, covered in getting between Keflavík and Reykjavík. If you are still choosing where to collect, we compare that in Keflavík or Reykjavík pickup.
Akureyri. This is the one that genuinely earns its fee. You drive KEF to the south coast, round the east and up to the north, then fly from Akureyri back to Reykjavík city airport instead of retracing the roughly 390 km of Route 1 between Akureyri and the capital. It removes the least interesting day of a Ring Road trip, and works best from June to August, when roads and flight schedules are dependable.
Egilsstaðir. The east is the most expensive drop-off, because it is furthest from anywhere the fleet lives. It suits a slow run along the south coast with a flight out, or a trip built around the eastfjords and Vatnajökull. Ask early: fewer operators serve it, and slots can run out in peak season.
The fee on its own tells you nothing. Compare it against what it replaces: two extra rental days, several hundred kilometres of fuel, a night's accommodation on the way back, and a long, tired final drive. Then add what the one-way costs on top — usually a domestic flight per person plus the transfer from Reykjavík city airport to KEF.
One-way tends to win when the trip is a loop or a line rather than a base-and-spokes holiday, when you have seven to ten days and would otherwise spend two of them driving back over ground you have already seen, and when you are travelling in high summer. It tends to lose on short trips based in the southwest, on winter itineraries where a cancelled domestic flight strands you hundreds of kilometres from your international departure, and whenever the fee approaches the cost of the rental itself. Vehicle choice matters too: this route in a small two-wheel-drive car is a different proposition from a large 4x4, which we cover in choosing a car for the Ring Road.
A one-way rental changes nothing about the insurance. Gravel protection and sand-and-ash cover are still the two Iceland-specific products worth understanding, and river crossings are never insured: no Icelandic policy covers damage from fording a river, whatever cover you bought. F-roads still require a 4x4 and are governed by the operator's own terms; they generally open between mid-June and early July, depending on the road and the thaw. Winter tyres are required roughly from November to April, and a car collected inside that window should already have them — check at pickup rather than on the road. Our guides to rental insurance at Keflavík and winter tyre rules go through both.
Returning at a regional office deserves more care than at KEF: fewer staff, fewer chances to settle a dispute afterwards. Photograph the car from all four corners, keep the final fuel receipt, and get written confirmation that it was received without damage. If the office is unattended and you leave keys in a box, photograph the odometer, the fuel gauge and the parked car with a timestamp. Our car return guide sets out the sequence, and the same discipline at collection is in our pickup checks.
Two numbers belong in your phone wherever you drop the car: 112 for emergencies and 1777 for road conditions. In the north and east in shoulder season, 1777 is the one you will use.
Yes, with most operators that have a city office, and it is the cheapest one-way in Iceland — some charge nothing, others a nominal fee. Confirm which office: several sit in industrial areas, not downtown.
Sometimes, and far less readily than in summer: regional offices run reduced staffing, and operators are reluctant to leave a car in the east in January. Ask by email rather than trusting a search filter, and have a plan for a cancelled domestic flight.
Where campers are offered one-way at all they carry a fee, often a higher one, since a camper is slower and costlier to reposition. Several camper operators do not offer it, so ask before building an itinerary around it.
Not on the regular domestic network: scheduled flights use Reykjavík city airport, about 50 km from KEF on Route 41, so you need a coach or taxi across that gap. Domestic flights are weather-dependent — avoid connecting to an international departure the same day.
Yes, on longer trips. If the fee comes to less than two extra rental days plus fuel plus a hotel night, and you would otherwise repeat a route you have driven, it is the cheaper option as well as the better one. On a five-day trip it almost never works out.