Salmon story · Prices
When is salmon cheapest?
Farmed salmon is in the shops all year, so it’s easy to think it has no season. Its price does. In each of the last four full years, Norway’s export price for fresh salmon hit its low between late July and early October, and its high between early January and early May.
- Cheapest month: Sep, 17.4% below the year's average
- Dearest month: Apr, 17.9% above the year's average
- Dearest week vs cheapest: +64–107% in each of 2022–2025
The low comes at the same time each year
Each line is one year of the weekly export price, in Norwegian kroner per kilo. The dot marks the year’s cheapest week. In every full year it fell between week 31 and week 40, and the dearest week came between week 1 and week 18. The dearest week cost 64% to 107% more than the cheapest.
| Year | Cheapest week | NOK/kg | Dearest week | NOK/kg | Dearest vs cheapest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 36 | 61.80 | 18 | 108.21 | +75% |
| 2023 | 35 | 75.15 | 11 | 122.88 | +64% |
| 2024 | 40 | 69.70 | 15 | 123.28 | +77% |
| 2025 | 31 | 60.58 | 1 | 125.36 | +107% |
Month by month
Prices were higher in some years than others, so to compare months we measured each week against its own year’s average. Averaged over 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, September was the cheapest month, 17.4% below the year’s average, and April the dearest, 17.9% above it.
| Month | Price vs the year's average |
|---|---|
| Jan | +9% |
| Feb | +9.3% |
| Mar | +12.1% |
| Apr | +17.9% |
| May | +12.6% |
| Jun | +3.1% |
| Jul | -9% |
| Aug | -16.9% |
| Sep | -17.4% |
| Oct | -12.9% |
| Nov | -9.2% |
| Dec | +2.5% |
Why the price moves
Farmed salmon grow faster in the warmer water of summer and autumn and more slowly in the cold of winter and spring. Across Europe, the amount of salmon in the sea pens is at its lowest around May and its highest around October, according to the industry figures in Mowi’s salmon farming handbook.
The same handbook says the amount of salmon on offer can’t change much in the short term, while demand shifts with the season, and calls that the main reason the price swings. So the pattern is a mix of how fast the fish grow and when people buy, not one simple cause.
The trade sees it too. Salmon Business, citing analysts, reported in August 2026 that the yearly low fell between weeks 34 and 40 in six of the previous ten years, and that in 2025 it came as early as week 31.
Is salmon cheap right now?
In week 41 of 2026, the latest week we have, the export price was 72.55 NOK per kilo (about $7.57). In the same week of 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 it averaged 75.58 NOK, so this year is 4% below that. The pattern isn’t exact: this year’s cheapest week so far was week 27, at 67.31 NOK, outside the window the earlier years set.
What this price is, and isn't
This is Statistics Norway’s weekly average export price for fresh or chilled farmed salmon, whole fish rather than fillets, valued at the Norwegian border. It mixes spot and contract sales. It isn’t what a shop charges. Shop prices also depend on contracts, processing and the shop’s margin, and we don’t have shop prices, so we can’t say how much of this swing reaches the shelf.
Wild salmon follow a different calendar. Alaska’s commercial salmon catch, for example, is tracked from mid-May through September. Nothing on this page is about wild salmon prices.
Sources
Statistics Norway, table 03024, 2021-W42 to 2026-W41 (260 weeks). Weekly export price for fresh or chilled whole farmed Atlantic salmon, in NOK per kg. Weeks are ISO weeks; a week belongs to the month its Thursday falls in. Dollar prices use that week’s exchange rate.
- Statistics Norway, table 03024: export of salmon, by commodity group and week
- Statistics Norway, about the statistic: export of salmon
- Mowi, Salmon Farming Industry Handbook 2026 (pp. 48, 73, 110, 120)
- Salmon Business, “Salmon spot price down 14…” (10 August 2026)
- Salmon Business, “Salmon spot price up 6…” (30 July 2026)
- Alaska Department of Fish and Game, inseason commercial salmon summary
Download the data (JSON) · Another story: why salmon is orange