borga ("to pay") is the verb you need at every till, restaurant table, and ticket counter in Iceland. It is a textbook weak Class-1 verb, so the conjugation holds no surprises once you know tala — but it has one orthographic feature worth flagging up front: its stem vowel is o, not a, so the famous u-umlaut never touches it. "We pay" is við borgum, plain and simple. This page also covers the preposition borga lives with, borga fyrir ("pay for"), the everyday borga með korti ("pay by card"), and how borga differs from its more formal cousin greiða.
Conjugation
Class: weak, Class 1 (the -aði preterite). Auxiliary: hafa — ég hef borgað "I have paid."
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að borga |
| 3sg present | borgar |
| 3sg past | borgaði |
| Supine | borgað |
| Person | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| ég | borga | borgaði |
| þú | borgar | borgaðir |
| hann / hún / það | borgar | borgaði |
| við | borgum | borguðum |
| þið | borgið | borguðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | borga | borguðu |
| Person | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| ég | borgi | borgaði |
| þú | borgir | borgaðir |
| hann / hún / það | borgi | borgaði |
| við | borgum | borguðum |
| þið | borgið | borguðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | borgi | borguðu |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative (þú) | borgaðu |
| Imperative (þið) | borgið! |
| Supine | borgað |
| Past participle (m/f/n) | borgaður / borguð / borgað |
| Middle voice (miðmynd) | borgast — "to pay off / be worth it" |
borga fyrir — "pay for" (+ accusative)
To name what you are paying for, use borga fyrir + accusative. English "pay for X" maps cleanly onto it. You can also borga someone (the recipient goes straight in the accusative, no preposition) and borga for the thing with fyrir.
Hver ætlar að borga fyrir matinn?
Who's going to pay for the food?
Ég borgaði fyrir bjórinn, þú mátt borga fyrir leigubílinn.
I paid for the beer, you can pay for the taxi.
Hann borgaði mér til baka daginn eftir.
He paid me back the next day.
borga með korti — "pay by card"
Means of payment take með + dative: borga með korti ("pay by card"), borga með reiðufé / í reiðufé ("pay in cash"). At the till you will constantly hear and use this.
Get ég borgað með korti?
Can I pay by card?
Borgaðu bara með símanum, það er fljótlegast.
Just pay with your phone, it's the fastest.
borga vs greiða
borga and greiða both mean "to pay," and they overlap heavily — but they sit in different registers. borga is the everyday word; greiða is the formal/bureaucratic one you meet on bills, in contracts, and in officialese (greiða reikning "settle a bill," greiðsla "a payment"). In a shop you say borga; a letter from the bank says greiða.
Þú þarft að greiða reikninginn fyrir mánaðamót.
You must pay the bill before the end of the month. (formal — e.g. on an invoice)
Ég er búinn að borga, við getum farið.
I've paid, we can go. (everyday)
Common Mistakes
❌ Við börgum reikninginn á eftir.
Incorrect — the stem vowel is o, which does not umlaut; it stays borgum
✅ Við borgum reikninginn á eftir.
We'll pay the bill in a bit.
❌ Ég borga fyrir þér oft.
Incorrect — borga fyrir takes the accusative (þig), not the dative
✅ Ég borga oft fyrir þig.
I often pay for you.
❌ Get ég borgað með kort?
Incorrect — með governs the dative, so 'card' must be korti
✅ Get ég borgað með korti?
Can I pay by card?
❌ Þú þarft að borga reikninginn fyrir mánaðamót.
Understandable but register-mismatched on an official bill — there you'd write greiða
✅ Þú þarft að greiða reikninginn fyrir mánaðamót.
You must pay the bill before the end of the month.
Key Takeaways
- borga / borgar / borgaði / borgað — a fully regular weak Class-1 verb; past tense -aði.
- Stem vowel o, so no u-umlaut: við borgum, þau borguðu — never "börgum."
- borga fyrir
- accusative = "pay for"; borga
- accusative alone = pay a person; borga með
- dative = pay by a means.
- accusative alone = pay a person; borga með
- accusative = "pay for"; borga
- greiða is the formal twin of borga — use it on bills and in officialese, borga in daily life.
- Auxiliary is hafa: ég hef borgað. The idiom það borgar sig = "it's worth it."
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- Shopping and Service PhrasesA2 — The survival phrases for shops, restaurants, and services — Hvað kostar þetta?, Ég ætla að fá ..., Get ég borgað með korti? — built around the key verb-choice habit that Icelandic orders with 'fá' (get), not 'kaupa' (buy) or 'vilja' (want), plus the case each phrase governs.
- The Weak Preterite: -aði, -di, -ði, -tiA2 — How to choose and form the weak past tense — Class-1 -a verbs take -aði (tala → talaði, plural töluðum), Class-2 verbs take the short dental -di/-ði/-ti picked by the preceding sound (reyndi, dæmdi, keypti) — with the full tala paradigm and the 'when in doubt, -aði' default for unknown verbs.