A survey by Norway’s Directorate of Fisheries has found the profitability of the country’s salmon industry dropped sharply in 2025.
The directorate of fisheries said its profitability survey identified a decline in the financial results for both salmon and rainbow trout production compared to 2024. According to the government agency, total ordinary profit before tax across the industry in 2025 was NOK 7.7 billion (USD 827 million, EUR 739 million), a NOK 6.6 billion (USD 709 million, EUR 634 million), or 46 percent, drop compared to the prior year.
That decrease is from what was already a down year for the industry in 2024. According to the survey for the year 2024, Norway’s salmon and rainbow trout supply chain saw a total profit before taxes of NOK 14.3 billion (USD 1.5 billion, EUR 1.3 billion), which was a 32 percent decline year over year. However, the directorate also said it was more difficult to directly compare 2024 to previous years, as the country’s resource rent tax, implemented in 2023, resulted in several companies restructuring during the period studied.
The numbers in 2025 reveal more than just lower profit; it also revealed a shift in where those profits are going. According to the directorate of fisheries, companies with hatchery production account for an increasingly large share of the total profit. It said companies with hatcheries accounted for 32.5 percent of the total profit, up from 19.6 percent of the total in 2024. However, despite an increased share of the profits, those hatchery fish producers also had a decline in their financial results.
The directorate of fisheries also found that the selling price per kilogram of salmon sold was NOK 61.31 (USD 6.59, EUR 5.88) in 2025, a drop of 10.2 percent compared to the prior year, when salmon fetched an average of NOK 68.26 (USD 7.33, EUR 6.55) per kilogram.
Salmon prices hit deep lows in 2025, and in May 2025, the average price for 1 kilogram of salmon fell by NOK 40.88 (USD 4.39, EUR 3.92) compared to the same month the prior year, the largest year-over-year drop in price ever recorded by the Norwegian Seafood Council, a government-funded trade body.
The low price resulted in overall export value declines, but it also caused shifts in the market as Norwegian salmon exports to the U.S. jumped by as much as 63 percent in May 2025 compared to the prior year. That surge in exports was rapid enough that legal firms in the U.S. looked into whether Norway was “dumping” salmon in the country.
The low prices also kept profits low even as costs for producing fish were reduced, according to the Directorate of Fisheries. Its survey found the average total cost per kilogram of fish produced was NOK 61.79 (USD 6.64, EUR 5.93) per kilogram, a drop of 4.4 percent from the NOK 64.64 (USD 6.94, EUR 6.20) it cost the prior year. However, even with the drops the overall cost of producing salmon remained high, and 2025 was the third-most-expensive year since 2001 in terms of production costs.
The profitability and average price is also complicated by the changes in currency. The krone was weaker in 2025 than it was in 2024, with a single dollar worth roughly NOK 10.7 on average in 2024, compared to NOK 10.3 in 2025. That means while the cost to produce salmon dropped 4.4 percent in terms of the krone from 2024 to 2025, if that currency conversion rate is applied, it only dropped by 1.1 percent in terms of the U.S. dollar.
The comparisons are also more complicated due to the resource rent tax in 2023, and the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries said that any direct comparisons between years after the tax to years before the tax don’t tell the full story.
