Iceland bought ISK 4.57 billion (about €31.7 million) of goods from Portugal in the first eight months of 2026, according to Statistics Iceland’s trade-by-country table. That is 58% more than the ISK 2.89 billion (about €20.0 million) recorded for January–August 2025, and already more than Iceland imported from Portugal in the whole of 2025 (ISK 4.23 billion). Almost a fifth of the total arrived in a single month. In July, Icelandic customs recorded ISK 958 million (about €6.7 million) of large power transformers from Portugal, a product line that was absent from the bilateral trade in every other month of 2026. Iceland is the smallest of the five Nordic economies and rarely features in NorthSouth HQ’s trade coverage, but the numbers show a market where a single industrial order can change the whole picture for Portuguese exporters.

One shipment of transformers

The July jump is visible in the SITC breakdown. Electrical machinery from Portugal came to ISK 965.7 million in July alone, against ISK 53.7 million for January–August 2025 as a whole. The HS-level import table narrows it to a single code: 85042300, liquid-dielectric transformers with a power handling capacity above 10,000 kVA. Iceland recorded ISK 958.0 million of these from Portugal in July, weighing 204.5 tonnes, and none in any other month this year. Transformers of this class are the oil-filled units used in high-voltage substations and at power stations.

The statistics do not name the exporter or the buyer, and neither has announced a delivery, so NorthSouth HQ cannot confirm who made them. The best-known Portuguese maker of large power transformers is Efacec, the Matosinhos-based engineering group that already sells rail-charging systems to Banedanmark in Denmark. Icelandic utilities have also been buying. On the EU’s Tenders Electronic Daily, the national distribution company RARIK awarded a contract in 2024 for five power transformers of 20–35 MVA to the Reykjavik supplier Fagkaup ehf., and the national power company Landsvirkjun has run several transformer tenders for its hydro and geothermal stations in 2025 and 2026. Whether the July cargo belongs to any of these is not public.

Without the transformers, still up a quarter

Take the transformer shipment out and Icelandic imports from Portugal were about ISK 3.61 billion (about €25.1 million) in January–August, still 25% higher than a year earlier. Clothing remains the largest regular line at ISK 603 million, up 17%. Iron and steel more than doubled to ISK 573 million, with tonnage rising from 2,495 to 6,089 tonnes. Furniture and mattresses rose from ISK 209 million to ISK 447 million, and manufactures of metal from ISK 187 million to ISK 298 million. Footwear slipped 9% to ISK 217 million, and fuel products fell from ISK 282 million to ISK 199 million. Wine and other beverages were flat at about ISK 77 million.

These are small numbers by the standards of Sweden or Denmark. But they suggest Portuguese building materials and furnishings are finding a place in Iceland’s construction and fit-out market. For a supplier of steel profiles, furniture or fittings, a market of about 400,000 people can still be worth a container a month.

The other direction: salt cod and aluminium

The corridor with Iceland runs much more strongly the other way. Iceland exported ISK 21.94 billion (about €152 million) of goods to Portugal in January–August, up 21%. Fish accounted for ISK 16.85 billion, up 15% in value while the volume was flat at about 10,600 tonnes, so the gain came almost entirely from price: the average value per tonne rose from about ISK 1.38 million to ISK 1.59 million. That mirrors what Norway has reported on clipfish and salted cod sales to Portugal, where tight cod quotas have pushed bacalhau prices to records. Non-ferrous metals, mostly aluminium from Iceland’s three smelters, rose 50% to ISK 4.76 billion. Portugal therefore runs a trade deficit with Iceland of roughly ISK 17.4 billion (about €121 million) for the period.

Why it matters for Portuguese exporters

Iceland is often left out of Nordic market plans because of its size and distance, and because its alcohol retail monopoly, ÁTVR (Vínbúðin), is much smaller than Systembolaget or Vinmonopolet. The 2026 figures make two points. First, energy infrastructure is a real opening: Iceland’s grid and power companies buy heavy electrical equipment through open tenders published on TED, as members of the European Economic Area, and a Portuguese-made transformer order of this size was worth more than four times Portuguese footwear sales to Iceland in January–August. Second, the construction-related categories are growing quickly from a low base, and Iceland is reachable through the same distributors and agents in Reykjavik who serve the rest of the import market.

What to watch

Statistics Iceland publishes monthly trade by country about four weeks after the end of each month, so September figures should follow shortly. They will show whether further transformer deliveries follow the July cargo. Landsvirkjun’s open tenders for generator step-up transformers at its Sigalda and Theistareykir stations, published on TED in March and April 2026, are worth following for any Portuguese award. Portuguese companies already selling in the region are listed in the directory of Portuguese companies in the Nordics, and Nordic firms operating in Portugal are in the directory of Nordic companies in Portugal.

Values in Icelandic krónur as published by Statistics Iceland (imports CIF, exports FOB); 2026 figures are provisional. Euro conversions use Norges Bank monthly average EUR/NOK and ISK/NOK rates (about ISK 143.9 per euro for January–August 2026, ISK 144.5 for 2025 and ISK 143.2 for July 2026). Sources: Statistics Iceland, UTA06003 Exports and imports by countries; UTA06201 Imports by SITC and countries; UTA06107 Exports by SITC and countries; UTA03803 Imports by HS classification, chapters 84–99; TED 703999-2024 (RARIK power transformers award); TED 199648-2026 (Landsvirkjun SIG31 step-up transformer); Norges Bank exchange rates.