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Icelandic Interpreters

Professional Icelandic interpreting, virtual or in person, for the settings where getting it wrong has consequences — asylum interviews, hearings, attorney meetings, medical appointments and school meetings.

Icelandic has a very small interpreter pool, and Danish or Norwegian will not cover it

Can a Danish, Norwegian or Swedish interpreter cover an Icelandic speaker? No: Icelandic is not mutually intelligible with standard Danish, Norwegian or Swedish, as Aarhus University’s Nordic-studies site puts it plainly, and Faroese, its closest relative, is understood only at a basic level. Iceland had some 338,000 native inhabitants in 2018, and all of them speak Icelandic.

In the United States the Census Bureau counted 4,865 people speaking Icelandic at home in 2009–2013, spread thinly — the largest groups were around 200–300 each in the New York, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles and Boston metro areas — and only 565 of them spoke English less than “very well”. English has replaced Danish as the foreign language Icelanders learn, so most requests are not about basic comprehension: they are depositions, hearings and medical consultations where a fluent English speaker still needs to give exact testimony in their own language. The pool is very small; book as early as you can, and expect virtual.

Jónsdóttir is not a family name, and no one in the family shares it

Icelanders mostly have no family surname. A child’s surname is formed from a parent’s given name plus -son for a son or -dóttir for a daughter, or -bur (“offspring”) for a person registered with neutral gender; it may come from the father, the mother, or both. Inherited family names are uncommon and allowed only by exception. So Jón’s children are Jónsson and Jónsdóttir, their mother has a different surname again, and none of the four matches.

US forms assume a shared family name and a maiden name, and an Icelandic family breaks both assumptions. In custody, adoption, estate or immigration paperwork, a mother and child with different surnames look like a discrepancy to someone who does not know the system. Have the interpreter explain it once on the record rather than let it be raised piecemeal.

The kennitala starts with the birth date, day first

Every person registered in Iceland has a ten-digit kennitala, usually written with a hyphen after the sixth digit. Registers Iceland sets it out: the first six digits are the date of birth as day, month, year; digits seven and eight are random; the ninth is a check digit; the tenth gives the century — 9 for 1900–1999, 0 for 2000 onward. Its own example, 120174-3389, is someone born on 12 January 1974.

Read the American way, as month first, the same digits become December 1. The kennitala is how Icelandic public bodies identify a person, from tax to civil records, and when an interpreter is sight-translating one or a date of birth is being confirmed against it, the date should be said in words — “the twelfth of January” — not as digits.

Icelandic is a limited-availability language

There are comparatively few qualified Icelandic interpreters working in the United States, and the ones there are get booked. That is why Icelandic carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate, and why lead time matters more here than with a common language: a week is comfortable, two days is a gamble.

We would rather tell you that before you book a hearing date than after. If your date is fixed and close, say so when you enquire and we will tell you honestly whether we can staff it rather than accepting and hoping.

The standard-availability languages are: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Polish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Tagalog, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Somali and Nepali. Every other language we offer carries the 25–30% limited-availability rate. If a language is not on that list it is not because we cannot do it — it is because the pool of qualified interpreters in the United States is small enough that we will not promise a date without checking.

By video, by phone or in person

Virtual interpreting runs on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, or over the telephone. It is quicker to arrange, costs less and carries no travel charge, and it suits appointments, calls and most meetings.

In person is what venues with their own rules tend to expect, and the right choice when documents are being signed or several people are speaking at once. Tell us the platform, or the city and the venue, when you send the request.

Where interpretation is used

The settings differ in what they demand of the interpreter, which is worth saying because they are frequently priced as though they were the same work:

• Asylum and immigration interviews. USCIS asylum interviews require the applicant to bring an interpreter, and the interview can be rescheduled if the interpreter does not appear or is not competent — which makes this the setting where getting it right matters most.
• Attorney–client meetings and declarations. Preparing testimony, taking a statement, going through documents.
• Depositions and hearings. Where the record is being made and accuracy is examined afterwards.
• Medical appointments. Note that hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance themselves, so ask before you hire.
• School meetings. IEP meetings and parent conferences — districts also have their own obligations here.
• Business meetings and signings, such as real estate closings.

Each setting has its own page — who has to provide the interpreter, what the meeting asks of one and what it costs: see interpreters by setting.

What it costs

Rates are per interpreter, per hour, and billed from the scheduled start time rather than from when everyone actually arrives.

• Virtual — $80 per hour, one-hour minimum. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams or telephone.
• In person — $110 per hour, two-hour minimum.
• Limited-availability languages — add 25–30%. Which languages those are is listed below rather than left vague.
• Travel for in-person work — $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location.

How the travel charge works out

Travel is charged at $0.70 per mile from the interpreter's location, which means you can work it out rather than wait for a quote: a 20-mile round trip is $14, a 60-mile round trip is $42, a 150-mile round trip is $105. There is no separate call-out fee on top.

We will not pretend to know in advance where the interpreter will be coming from — that depends on the language, the date and the venue. What we do is confirm the interpreter and the exact travel figure before you book, so it is never a surprise on the invoice. Virtual assignments carry no travel charge at all, which is one reason most of what we do is virtual.

How booking an interpreter works

• You send the request with the form below: the language, the setting, the format, the date and how long it should last.
• We confirm before you commit: the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one. We reply the same business day, and no payment is taken at this stage.
• You confirm, and the interpreter is booked for your date.

What we will tell you before you book

Two things, both of which occasionally cost us the booking. Whether the venue supplies its own interpreter. Immigration court provides one. Hospitals receiving federal funding generally must provide language assistance. School districts have obligations of their own. If yours does, you should not be paying us — ask them first.

And whether we can actually staff your date. For a limited-availability language on short notice the honest answer is sometimes no, and we would rather say it than accept a booking we cannot fill. Interpretation is not translation: see certified translation at $24.95 per page if what you need is a document rendered in writing.

What to have ready

The more of this comes in the first message, the fewer exchanges before you have a price:

• The language, the date, the start time and how long it should run.
• Virtual or in person: the platform, or the city and the venue.
• The setting and the subject matter.
• How many people need interpreting for.
• Any credential the venue requires of the interpreter.

Request an interpreter

Tell us the date, the language and the setting and we will come back with the interpreter, the exact price and the travel figure if there is one — before you commit to anything.

Sources

The facts on this page about the language and its speakers in the United States were checked against these sources on October 28, 2026.

• U.S. Census Bureau — Detailed Languages Spoken at Home, ACS 2009–2013 (nation and metro tables)
• nordics.info, Aarhus University — Michael P. Barnes, Linguistic variety in the Nordic region (February 21, 2019)
• Island.is (Government of Iceland) — Icelandic naming convention: surnames
• Registers Iceland — Identification number (kennitala)

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