National Planning Agency
Regional Planning
This website uses automatic translation for English content, which may not fully capture the original meaning. For complete accuracy, refer to the Icelandic version, which is the official source. We welcome your patience as we work to improve translation quality and site map.
A Regional Plan is a development plan created by two or more municipalities concerning common interests and regional priorities, such as urban development, transportation, or water protection.
A Regional Plan must cover an area that forms a cohesive whole geographically, economically and socially, and can therefore encompass entire regions or other larger territorial units.
It's mandatory to develop a Regional Plan for the capital area, but in other parts of the country, regional planning is optional.
Information about the status of regional plans across the country can be accessed via a web map.
Details on planning projects currently in progress are available through the planning portal, Skipulagsgátt.
Regional Planning
Where a regional plan is to be developed, the local authorities concerned shall establish a joint regional planning committee. This committee is responsible for the preparations, presentation and processing of the regional plann, under the authority of the participating municipal councils.
A regional planning committee must also operate where a regional plan is already in effect. The comittee carries out the implementation and amendments of the regional plan and shall, at the beginning of each electoral term, access whether there is cause for a revision of the existing regional plan.
A regional plan requires the approval of all participating municipal councils and must be confirmed by the National Planning Agency.
The cost of preparing a regional plan is shared equally between the involved municipalities and the Planning Fund, Skipulagssjóður. An application for funding can be accessed on the National Planning Agency’s service pages. Please note that the application is in Icelandic.