Salmon story · Prices

Why is salmon so expensive?

Norway’s export price for fresh salmon averaged kr 80 a kilo in 2025, against kr 27 in the 2000s. Even after inflation, the last ten years cost 81% more than the 2000s did. The short answer: the amount of salmon stopped growing as fast as it used to, and raising each fish got more expensive.

Export price, 2025: kr 80 a kilo, whole fish
After inflation: +81%, 2016–2025 vs 2000–2009
Export growth a year: 8% before 2015, 2% after

Two jumps, not a steady climb

In today’s kroner, the price moved between kr 36 and kr 59 a kilo from 2000 to 2015. In 2016 it jumped to kr 80, and it hasn’t been below kr 69 (2020) since. It peaked in 2023 at kr 98, and in 2025 it was back at kr 80.

Year	kr/kg, as paid	kr/kg, in 2025 kroner	€/kg	Tonnes exported
2000	31.67	57.76	3.90	264,469
2001	25.84	45.79	3.21	259,452
2002	23.36	40.87	3.11	270,633
2003	21.20	36.17	2.65	313,741
2004	22.46	38.18	2.68	340,618
2005	26.31	44.02	3.29	386,936
2006	31.88	52.14	3.96	401,531
2007	26.49	43.02	3.30	498,951
2008	26.94	42.15	3.28	514,807
2009	30.74	47.08	3.52	579,340
2010	37.49	56.05	4.68	625,134
2011	31.97	47.18	4.10	693,131
2012	27.63	40.52	3.70	837,518
2013	39.70	57.00	5.08	802,229
2014	41.03	57.71	4.91	829,371
2015	42.89	59.06	4.79	881,504
2016	60.06	79.83	6.47	819,710
2017	60.33	78.74	6.47	846,566
2018	60.74	77.16	6.33	897,833
2019	60.09	74.68	6.10	943,435
2020	56.37	69.18	5.26	947,735
2021	58.76	69.69	5.78	1,047,277
2022	78.68	88.23	7.79	1,000,417
2023	92.57	98.36	8.11	988,712
2024	89.63	92.38	7.71	967,341
2025	79.81	79.81	6.81	1,101,187

Less new salmon each year

From 2000 to 2015, Norway’s exports of fresh whole salmon grew about 8% a year. From 2015 to 2025, about 2% a year. In 2016, the year the price jumped, exports fell 7%.

The whole industry shows the same slowdown. Mowi’s salmon farming handbook, using figures from the analysts Kontali, puts Norway’s growth at 6% a year over 2005–2025 but 3% a year over 2015–2025, and says the industry “has reached a production level where biological boundaries are being pushed”.

In Norway the limit is also written into law. Since 2017 the coast has been split into 13 production areas, and sea lice decide whether each may grow: green areas may add 6%, yellow ones stay put, red ones must shrink by 6%. Extra capacity is sold by the state; in 2024 that raised NOK 5.8 billion.

Salmon farmed and sold in Norway was almost flat from 2021 to 2024, at about 1.65 million tonnes a year with trout included, before jumping to 1.86 million in 2025, according to the Directorate of Fisheries.

When supply moves, the price moves more

When the amount of salmon changes, the price moves the other way, and by much more. Figures from the analysts Kontali, in Mowi’s handbook, show it with the average Oslo price in euros: in 2022 the world had 2% less farmed salmon than the year before, and the price rose 40%. In 2025 it had 10% more, and the price fell 15%.

Year	World supply	Average Oslo price, EUR
2022	-2%	+40%
2023	-3%	0%
2024	+3%	-5%
2025	+10%	-15%

The 2025 fall shows it plainly. Unusually good conditions in the sea meant fish grew fast and fewer died, so Norway exported 28% more salmon in July and 17% more in August than a year earlier. The Norwegian Seafood Council said the fall in prices “must mainly be seen in light of the large volume growth from Norway and globally”, and that the export price of fresh whole salmon had not been that low since September 2022.

It works the other way too. In August 2026 Mowi said it expected no growth in the world’s supply in the second half of 2026.

Raising a kilo costs twice what it did

It also costs more to raise each kilo. Norway’s Directorate of Fisheries surveys fish farms every year: their total cost per kilo was kr 33.86 in 2016 and kr 64.64 in 2024. Feed is the biggest single cost, about 40% of the total.

Year	Cost per kg	of which feed
2016	kr 33.86	kr 14.55
2022	kr 49.12	kr 21.63
2023	kr 64.68	kr 25.89
2024	kr 64.64	kr 25.67

Part of the 2023 jump is bookkeeping: the directorate links some of it to changes in how companies were structured after the salmon tax came in, which moved costs between lines.

Fish deaths add to the cost, because a fish that dies in the pen has eaten feed but is never sold. The Norwegian Veterinary Institute counts how many farmed salmon die at sea each year: 16.7% in 2023, the worst year in its last five, and 14.2% in 2025, the lowest in at least five years. Mowi’s handbook names rising feed costs, biological costs and stricter rules as the reasons costs rose over the last ten years.

The krone did some of it

Our price is in Norwegian kroner, and the krone got weaker. From 2021 to 2023 the price rose 58% in kroner but 40% in euros, because a euro went from kr 10.16 to kr 11.42. So some of the rise in kroner was the currency, not the fish.

In 2026 the currency worked the other way. In April the krone was 7% stronger against the euro and 12% stronger against the dollar than a year earlier, the Seafood Council reported, which pushes prices measured in kroner down.

What about US tariffs?

From	US tariff
5 Apr 2025	10%	US baseline tariff on almost all imports
7 Aug 2025	15%	Norway’s country rate takes effect
24 Feb 2026	10%	Temporary surcharge, after the Supreme Court struck down the earlier tariffs on 20 Feb
24 Jul 2026	12.5%	On Norwegian products under Section 301; the EU and UK get 10%

A US tariff is paid when the fish enters the US, on top of the price on this page, which is measured at Norway’s border. We don’t have US shop prices, so we can’t say how much of it reached shoppers.

What the tariffs clearly changed is where the fish went. In August 2025 the value of fresh whole salmon sent to the US fell 51% from a year earlier. In the first half of 2026 Norway’s seafood exports to the US fell 28%, and China overtook the US as its second-biggest market.

Two explanations that don’t hold up

Norway’s salmon tax. Since 2023 fish farms pay a 25% tax on their profits from the sea. It taxes the farms’ profit, not the fish, and we found no source showing it raised the export price.

The EU price-fixing case. In January 2024 the European Commission set out its preliminary view that six Norwegian salmon companies exchanged sensitive information on spot prices, volumes and capacity. The companies contest it, the alleged conduct ran from 2011 to 2019, and we found no decision as of October 2026.

Is salmon expensive right now?

In week 42 of 2026, the latest week we have, the export price was 74.05 NOK a kilo (about $7.79). A year earlier it was 73.74 NOK, so it is about the same. The price also swings with the season, cheapest in late summer.

When is salmon cheapest? · This week's price, in your currency

What this price is, and isn't

This is Statistics Norway’s export price for fresh or chilled farmed salmon, whole fish, valued at the Norwegian border. It is not what a shop charges. For fresh salmon we found no official figure for how much of the shop price goes to the farm. The closest is an EU study of smoked salmon in France, Germany and Poland, where the fish itself made up 21–34% of the shop price.

Sources

Statistics Norway, table 03024, 2000 to 2025. Each year’s price is the volume-weighted average of the weekly export prices for fresh or chilled whole farmed salmon. “Today’s kroner” uses Statistics Norway’s consumer price index. Euro prices use Norges Bank’s average rate for the year.

Download the data (JSON) · Another story: why salmon is orange