President of Iceland

President of Iceland
Forseti Íslands (Icelandic)
Presidential Coat of Arms
Presidential Standard
Incumbent Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson since 1 August 2016
Office of the President
Style	Mr President (informal) His Excellency (diplomatic)
Member of	State Council of Iceland
Residence	Bessastaðir
Seat	Garðabær, Iceland
Appointer	Popular vote
Term length	Four years, renewable
Constituting instrument	Constitution of Iceland
Precursor	King of Iceland
Formation	17 June 1944; 80 years ago (1944-06-17)
First holder	Sveinn Björnsson
Succession	Line of succession
Salary	€289,000 annually[1]
Website	forseti.is/en (in English) forseti.is (in Icelandic)

Politics of Iceland
Government Constitution of Iceland Law Taxation Constitutional reform
Legislature Althing Speaker Birgir Ármannsson (D) Members of Parliament Constituencies
Executive President of Iceland Guðni Th. Jóhannesson (I) Prime Minister of Iceland Bjarni Benediktsson (D) Cabinet
Judiciary Supreme Court of Iceland President Benedikt Bogason Justices of the Court
Elections Presidential Parliamentary 2012 referendum
Political parties List of political parties
Administrative divisions Regions (Landshlutar) Municipalities (Sveitarfélög) Localities (Kaupstaðir)
Foreign relations Diplomatic missions of Iceland in Iceland Iceland and the European Union Cod Wars (1950s / 1970s)
Iceland portal Other countries
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The president of Iceland (Icelandic: Forseti Íslands) is the head of state of Iceland. The incumbent is Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, who declined to run for a third term after being elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2020.

Halla Tómasdóttir is president-elect after winning the 2024 Icelandic presidential election, and is scheduled to take office on 1 August.^[2]

The president is elected to a four-year term by popular vote, is not term-limited, and has limited powers.

Historically, while first-term elections have often been hard-fought, an incumbent president who decides to run again for office has usually run unopposed, or they have won re-election with an overwhelming majority of the vote when opposed. The 2012 election was a notable exception to this, where incumbent Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson won with only 52.78% of the vote.

The presidential residence is situated in Bessastaðir in Garðabær, near the capital city Reykjavík.

Iceland was the first country to have an elected female head of state when Vigdís Finnbogadóttir assumed Iceland's presidency on 1 August 1980. ^[3]