Is it true that immigrants in Iceland are paid €5,000 to marry Icelandic women?

Information that immigrants in this country are paid €5,000 to marry Icelandic women has been circulating on the Internet for several years. We checked whether this is actually true.

On the Internet, when asked about marrying Icelandic women, the first thing that comes up are videos with titles like “Marriage to an Icelandic woman 5000 euros as a gift”. Here's what it says in articles published on different portals and almost repeating each other one V one:

“Iceland will pay €5,000 a month to immigrants who marry Icelandic girls.

Iceland has a catastrophic demographic situation - there are almost twice as many women as men. Realizing that at this rate the island would soon turn into the kingdom of the Amazons, the Icelandic government decided to pay €5,000 to each immigrant who marries a local girl.”

Information that men will be given €5,000 for marrying an Icelandic woman has been circulating on the Internet for the fifth year now. Its active distribute still on Russian-language sites, and in global community on social networks (in different languages). The latest texts in Russian on this issue are dated 2020

This information first appeared around June 2016 and began to spread on various African websites. Fact-checking portal Snopes succeeded trace the path of this story: it most likely originated on the blog The Spirit Whispers. Here's what the original post supposedly looked like (spelling changed):

“Shocking news about Iceland, unbelievable but true! <…> …due to the large disproportion between women and men, the Icelandic government has decided to give €5,000 per month to immigrants who marry Icelandic girls; priority will be given to the people of North Africa.”

There were a lot of people willing to take advantage of this opportunity.

That same month, Icelandic media began reporting that Icelandic women were being inundated with friend requests on Facebook from male strangers. The title of one of the articles devoted to this problem and published on the website The Reykjavik Grapevine, in capital letters read: “No, the government will not pay you to marry Icelandic women.” 

In the article, the publication called the information fake and drew attention to the fact that, according to official data, the number of men in Iceland is actually, on the contrary, greater than the number of women.

This did not stop foreigners wanting to marry Icelandic women. They began to flood the Icelandic embassy and Foreign Ministry with requests. In August 2016, Icelandic sites are still tried convince readers that it is fake.

In the same year, “on behalf of the Icelandic Embassy” this information was denied by the Danish Embassy in Egypt (this office was responsible for visa requests to Iceland in the country). “Please note that information circulating online about government grants for immigrants who marry Icelandic women is not true,” wrote embassy on its Facebook page.

In 2018 about this through one of the Icelandic media stated the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iceland categorically denies all information and rumors about marriage for money.” Since 2016, the fake has already been refuted many fact-checking portals. But information about this continues to appear to this day, freely circulating on the Internet.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Does Iceland Pay $5,000 Per Month to Immigrants Who Marry Icelandic Women?
2. No, The Government Will Not Pay You To Marry An Icelander
3. Iceland's government has repeatedly refuted this hoax which has circulated since at least 2016
4. Iceland not paying immigrants to marry country’s women — and has no shortage of men