Iceland’s proposed aquaculture law is absent from the agenda for the current parliamentary session, and the country’s government has not decided whether to reintroduce it, the ministry responsible for the bill told local news outlet Vísir on Monday, September 28.
The ministry said the bill was left off the schedule, “because of the prioritisation of other parliamentary matters”.
Introduced on March 16, the proposal would revise rules and fees for open net pen farming and establish a framework for land-based aquaculture. The government had targeted legislation in the spring of 2026.
Parliamentary records identify the proposal as bill 529 in the 157th legislative period (2025–26). Its first reading took place on March 23, after which it was referred to the Industry and Trade Committee.
The committee completed its consideration on June 11. A majority report and proposed amendments were issued the following day, but the bill did not reach a second reading before parliamentary work ended.
Presenting the bill on March 23, Hanna Katrín Friðriksson linked it to the government’s December 2024 policy statement on growth in food production. She said the government wanted to strengthen fish farming rules to counter effects on the ecosystem, including by, “introducing incentives for farming sterile salmon and for farming in closed pens”.
An earlier draft of the framework also covered offshore aquaculture and proposed stronger oversight and environmental controls. The government’s industry action plan had called for a review of the rules and fees governing sea cage farming alongside a specific framework for land-based operations.
Friðriksson told news service RÚV in September that a lack of consensus within the aquaculture industry had become clear late in the bill’s progress. Viðreisn parliamentary group chairman Sigmar Guðmundsson also said agreement had not been reached, “here in parliament”.
In a written comment, Fisheries Iceland said that it supported updating the legal framework but described several provisions as, “unnecessarily burdensome and lacking in predictability”. It also called for further revisions and consultation to protect the industry’s competitiveness and investment conditions.
Lárus Ásgeirsson, who then chaired Laxey’s board and led the Farmers Association of Iceland’s land-based aquaculture division, sought separate legislation for land-based operators.
“We want to clearly separate land-based aquaculture from sea-cage farming,” he said in comments reported by Iceland Monitor in February.
Icelandic Salmon said in August that it had paused its planned output rise to 26,000 tonnes and cut investment. The company cited uncertainty surrounding Iceland’s aquaculture regulations and taxation, including the proposed law’s lack of approval.
