Workers at a marine farm in Arnarlax, one of Iceland's salmon producers.
Photo: Arnarlax.
As reported by WeAreAquaculture, January 2025 was the second-largest month of export value of aquaculture products in Iceland's history. In the Nordic island country, aquaculture continues to strengthen and its export value appears unstoppable, we said, but then we did not yet know a fact that, in the current international economic landscape, is decisive: January also marked a record for Icelandic aquaculture exports to the U.S.
"Never before has so much aquaculture products been exported to the United States in a single month as in January this year," Radarinn highlighted. According to its information, about 95% of those exports were salmon products whose value reached ISK 2.3 billion (EUR 15.7 million / USD 17.1 million). "Significantly more than in January 2024," the Icelandic fisheries and aquaculture industry directory assessed.
Iceland thus follows in the footsteps of Norway, which, as the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC) report revealed, also had the United States as the largest single market for its seafood exports in January 2025. Never had Norway exported fish and shellfish worth as much to the U.S. market. In that month alone, it sold NOK 1.1 billion (EUR 94.8 million / USD 103 million) worth of salmon to the U.S., which marked a new value record.
The trend continued into February when, for the second month in a row, the U.S. was the largest market for Norwegian seafood exports. It was the best month ever for exports to this country too, and, talking exclusively about salmon, also the market that recorded the highest growth in value. Commenting on the results, NSC CEO, Christian Chramer, said that although the fear of the introduction of tariff barriers is causing some unease in the market, this was not the main reason for the strong growth.
Likewise, analyzing how the shadow of U.S. tariffs affects not only exports to the U.S. but also those to other markets, such as China, Seafood Analyst at the Norwegian Seafood Council, Eivind Hestvik Brækkan, said that it is necessary to see developments over a longer period in order to assess the consequences of increased tariffs.
Their Icelandic neighbors are now taking the same line when analyzing January's results. "It will be interesting to see how the market for Icelandic salmon in the U.S. develops in the coming months, especially in light of planned tariff increases. For now, it's impossible to predict whether these measures will affect exports from Iceland," Radarinn's analysis said.
It should be noted that although both Norway and Iceland belong to the European Economic Area (EEA), neither country is a member of the European Union.
Continuing with the exports of Icelandic aquaculture products in January 2025, as mentioned above, the United States was in the lead, followed by the Netherlands, with sales of around ISK 1.6 billion (EUR 10.9 million / USD 11.8 million). Denmark comes next with approximately ISK 900 million (EUR 6.1 million / USD 6.6 million).
Radarinn noted that, according to Statistics Iceland, exports to Germany are also growing significantly, now approaching half a billion ISK (EUR 3.4 million / USD 3.7 million). Elsewhere, exports have declined somewhat - especially to Denmark, France and Poland - while the Netherlands remained relatively stable.
Although Radarinn has not yet released Iceland's aquaculture export data for February, in closing its analysis of what happened to exports to the U.S. in January, the Icelandic fisheries and aquaculture industry directory noted that looking back a few years to 2019, it is clear that the share of aquaculture products in the total value of seafood exports in January and February has increased substantially: from 10% to 26%.
"Since 2022 alone, this figure has more than doubled. This tells an important story about the significance of aquaculture exports for the country and its people," it concluded.
It is valuable to recall that 2024 marked a record year for the value of Iceland's aquaculture exports, with revenues increasing by more than 16% over 2023 and salmon consolidating its position as the second-highest export value fishery species.
