Trade story · The hidden legs
Norway farms it. Poland smokes it. Germany eats it.
Trade statistics count a salmon once, the day it leaves Norway. Follow it one border further and Norway's biggest customer turns out to be a factory floor: fish arrive whole in Poland and leave smoked, sliced and packed for the rest of Europe.
- 190,187 t of whole salmon, Norway → Poland, 2025 ($1.4B)
- 57,191 t of smoked salmon exported by Poland ($1.1B), 52% to Germany
- 64% of Germany's smoked salmon imports came from Poland, by Germany's own count
Chapter 1 · The second leg nobody counts
In 2025 Poland imported 218,696 t of whole salmon and exported 125,610 t of fillets and smoked salmon (that's product weight: a fillet weighs much less than the fish it came from).
Smoked salmon (HS 030541) · 57,191 t
| Destination | Tonnes | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | 29,767 | $610.5M |
| Italy | 8,482 | $155.4M |
| France | 5,764 | $110.4M |
| United States | 2,723 | $60.7M |
| Switzerland | 1,900 | $46.6M |
| Denmark | 1,549 | $27.1M |
| United Kingdom | 1,052 | $23.1M |
| Sweden | 850 | $17.9M |
Fresh fillets (HS 030441) · 34,126 t
| Destination | Tonnes | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | 16,674 | $317.5M |
| Czechia | 4,452 | $63.1M |
| Sweden | 4,160 | $53.1M |
| Italy | 2,484 | $36.1M |
| Switzerland | 1,315 | $26.5M |
| Netherlands | 1,121 | $15.6M |
| Romania | 1,106 | $17.6M |
| Denmark | 959 | $20.2M |
Frozen fillets (HS 030481) · 34,293 t
| Destination | Tonnes | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Denmark | 8,994 | $166.3M |
| Germany | 7,959 | $121.9M |
| Vietnam | 3,341 | $27.9M |
| Australia | 3,048 | $37.5M |
| United States | 2,337 | $30.8M |
| Israel | 1,419 | $16.9M |
| France | 1,081 | $14.6M |
| Netherlands | 948 | $13.9M |
Where Poland's whole salmon comes from · 2025
Norway 172,401 t · Sweden 16,848 t · Germany 9,397 t · Iceland 4,710 t · Ireland 4,191 t · United Kingdom 3,978 t (total 218,696 t)
Two customs offices, two numbers
Every border crossing is recorded twice, once by each side, and the two rarely agree. Timing, reporting thresholds and goods routed through a third country all move the count. We show both records rather than quietly picking one.
Whole salmon, Norway → Poland, 2025: Norway says it sent 190,187 t; Poland says it received 172,401 t (9.4% apart).
Smoked salmon, Poland → Germany, 2025: Poland says it sent 29,767 t; Germany says it received 16,570 t (44.3% apart).
Not a one-off
| Year | Norway → Poland, whole (t) | Poland smoked exports (t) | of which to Germany (t) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 153,215 | 50,711 | 32,581 |
| 2020 | 170,304 | 55,450 | 36,248 |
| 2021 | 180,719 | 62,830 | 39,190 |
| 2022 | 169,708 | 56,424 | 32,050 |
| 2023 | 175,510 | 52,097 | 29,325 |
| 2024 | 169,299 | 56,956 | 29,585 |
| 2025 | 190,187 | 57,191 | 29,767 |
Chapter 2 · Russia didn't need a back door
Since August 2014 Russia has banned Norwegian fish, as part of its own counter-sanctions against countries that sanctioned it. Norway's customs record 0 t of salmon to Russia in every year from 2019 to 2025. The obvious suspicion is that Norwegian salmon still gets in through a neighbour. The records say something simpler: Russia switched to Chile, which it never banned.
| Year | Chile → Russia (t) | Norway → Russia (t) |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 42,122 | 0 |
| 2020 | 43,398 | 0 |
| 2021 | 37,160 | 0 |
| 2022 | 25,723 | 0 |
| 2023 | 35,048 | 0 |
| 2024 | 20,965 | 0 |
| 2025 | 30,266 | 0 |
The back doors, checked
- Belarus: Norway sent 5,315 t of salmon in 2019 and nothing from 2023. Belarus hasn't reported its own trade to UN Comtrade since 2021.
- Kazakhstan: bought 6,400 t of Norwegian salmon in 2025, and sent Russia 58 t of salmon.
- Armenia: sent Russia 302 t of salmon in 2025, and 8,361 t of trout.
- Kyrgyzstan: 0 t of salmon to Russia in 2025; trout 201 t.
The trout trap
In the customs code, frozen trout (0303.14) sits one digit away from frozen Atlantic salmon (0303.13). Read the wrong line and Armenia and Kyrgyzstan look like big salmon exporters to Russia. We made that mistake ourselves before checking every code against UN Comtrade's own descriptions. Most of what those countries ship is trout.
Source
UN Comtrade, annual customs records, as reported by each country (2019–2025). Tonnes are net weight; values are USD as declared (exports FOB, imports CIF). Whole salmon = HS 030214 + 030313; fillets = 030441 / 030481; smoked = 030541. Download the data (JSON).