50.9
% of respondents, 2025
Low trust, 57 of 100 The sources disagree: their figures run from 36.4 to 54.
- Eurobarometer
- OECD Trust
- Gallup
Show the data as a table
| Year | Standard Eurobarometer 96, Volume A | OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions (Trust Survey) | Gallup World Poll, as republished in the OECD How's Life? database |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 34 | – | 23.81 |
| 2011 | 37 | – | – |
| 2012 | 26 | – | – |
| 2013 | 47 | – | 35.7 |
| 2014 | 38 | – | – |
| 2016 | – | – | 39.54 |
| 2019 | – | – | 44.32 |
| 2021 | 65 | 50.4 | – |
| 2022 | 54 | – | 58.05 |
| 2023 | – | 36.4 | – |
| 2025 | – | – | 50.9 |
All countriesAll of Iceland's figuresCompare
Iceland among 57 countries
13 have a higher figure and 43 a lower one. Definitions differ between countries, and their years run from 2023 to 2026.
Iceland 50.9
Lowest: Peru, 13.04Highest: Indonesia, 81.29
What this number counts
- Counts
- Share of adults who say they trust, or have confidence in, their national government, as each survey asks it
- Where
- Iceland
- When
- Latest year available: Eurobarometer 2022, OECD Trust 2023, Gallup 2025 (one survey)
Where the number comes from (3 sources)
| Source | Figure and year | Definition | Quality | Counts for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
542022 | Question QA6b.8: "How much trust do you have in certain institutions? For each of the following institutions, do you tend to trust it or tend not to trust it?" Item: "The (NATIONALITY) Government".Share answering "Tend to trust", of all respondents aged 15 and over, so "Tend not to trust" and don't know stay in the base. Wave: Standard Eurobarometer 96, fieldwork 18/01 - 14/02/2022 (day/month). Weighted sample in this wave: 500. Whole percent as published since 2004; earlier waves print one decimal. Raw file: eurobarometer/zips/eb096_eb96_Volume_A.xlsx, sheet QA6b_8. The Volume A of each earlier wave gives the series (7 points), using the first wave each calendar year that asked the question. | 3 of 5 checks
| 42% | |
OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions (Trust Survey)Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) · Perception surveyRetrieved 2026-11-02 · Data (API) | 36.42023 | Question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all and 10 is completely, how much do you trust the national government?" Share choosing 6 to 10, which the OECD calls "high or moderately high trust"; 5 is reported as neutral, 0 to 4 as low or no trust, and don't know separately, and all stay in the base.The cut-off is the OECD's. Adults aged 18 and over. Raw file: oecd/tdg2025.csv, MEASURE=TRUST_NG, SCALE=HMH, REF_AREA=ISL. This Government at a Glance table carries the OECD Trust Survey, not Gallup data. Method: oecd/technical_annex_2023.pdf. | 4 of 5 checks
| 28% |
Gallup World Poll, as republished in the OECD How's Life? databaseGallup, Inc. · Perception surveyRetrieved 2026-11-02 · Data (API) | 50.92025 | Question: "In this country, do you have confidence in each of the following, or not? ...How about national government?" Share answering yes (the others answer no or don't know), people aged 15 and over. The question asks about confidence, not trust. Collected by Gallup, published by the OECD as 3-year pooled averages (2006-07 is 2 years); stored under the last year of the pool, here 2023-25. Raw file: oecd/hsl_fwb_trust.csv, MEASURE=14_3, AGE=_T, SEX=_T, EDUCATION_LEV=_T. This is Gallup's collection, counted once; the OECD is the channel, not a second source. | 3 of 5 checks
| 30% |
- Eurobarometer42%
- OECD Trust28%
- Gallup30%
How the trust score was worked out
- Quality26.2 / 40
How well the sources are made
- Agreement9.3 / 30
How close the sources are to each other
- Independence12 / 20
How many separate ways the number was measured
- Freshness10 / 10
How recent the newest data is
Who reports it, and since when
- Blind spot: every counted source is the same kind
- Eurobarometer: no figure here after 2022, while others reach 2025
- Eurobarometer: no figure here for 6 years between 2010 and 2022
- OECD Trust: no figure here for 2022
- Gallup: no figure here for 10 years between 2010 and 2025
'10'15'20'25EurobarometerOECD TrustGallup
figure no figure here, inside its range no later figure recorded change
Why the numbers differ
- Question wording, Eurobarometer: people are asked whether they "tend to trust" or "tend not to trust" the government. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Question wording, OECD: people are asked how much they trust the national government, from 0 to 10. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Question wording, Gallup: people are asked whether they have "confidence" in the national government, and answer yes, no or don't know. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Response scale, OECD: 6 to 10 counts as trust and a 5 is reported as neutral. Across OECD countries in 2023, 39.3% were high or moderately high, 15.7% neutral, 44.2% low or no trust and 0.8% said don't know, all in the same base. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Denominator, Eurobarometer: percentages are of all respondents, so "tend not to trust" and don't know stay in the base, as does no answer in older waves. There is no neutral answer. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Denominator, Gallup: the percentage of respondents answering yes; the others answered no or don't know. There is no neutral answer. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Survey mode, Eurobarometer: the Commission describes about 1,000 face-to-face interviews per country. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Survey mode, OECD: in 2023 most countries answered online, from panels of people who signed up; Mexico was in person, Finland and the United Kingdom also used telephone, and Norway also used paper. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Who is asked, Eurobarometer: people aged 15 and over. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Who is asked, Gallup: people aged 15 and over, about 1,000 per country each year. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Who is asked, OECD: adults aged 18 and over, and in Mexico urban adults only. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Timing, Eurobarometer: Standard Eurobarometer 105 was in the field from 12 March to 5 April 2026. Iceland's latest point is from wave 96, and Norway, Switzerland and Kosovo's from wave 98. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Timing, OECD: the 2023 survey ran from 20 September to 12 December 2023, with dates varying by country. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Timing, Gallup: each country figure is a 3-year pooled average of the annual poll, except 2006-07, which pools two years, so it moves more slowly than a single wave. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Elections near fieldwork. The OECD says changes between its 2021 and 2023 waves may partly reflect each country's political cycle, while noting an analysis of eleven European countries that found the effect of general elections held in 2021-2022 "rather negligible". In 2023, 53% of people who voted for a party in power reported high or moderately high trust, against 26% of those who did not (Figure 2.4, PDF pages 52-53). This page does not match elections to fieldwork dates. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
Common mistakes
- Comparing a figure from one survey with another country's figure from a different survey. The wording and scales differ, so compare countries inside one line. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Reading the OECD's remainder as distrust. People who chose 5, or said they don't know, are in neither the high nor the low group. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Reading a Gallup point as one year. The OECD publishes it as a pooled average, stored here under the last year of the pool. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
- Reading these as measures of how good a government is. They record what people answered, at one time, to one question. (source, retrieved 2026-11-02)
Download, cite and report an error
From the table What share of people trust their national government in each country? Updated 2026-11-02.
Download every value in this table (CSV)
Cite as: RealStats, “Trust in the national government in Iceland”, updated 2026-11-02, with the original sources listed on the page.