Norway exported seafood worth NOK 16 billion in August 2026, up NOK 1.9 billion or 14 percent on the same month last year, according to figures published by the Norwegian Seafood Council on 3 September. The Council called it a historically high value for an August despite a krone that is considerably stronger than a year ago, driven by larger salmon volumes at higher prices and price growth for cod, mackerel, herring and saithe. For the Portugal corridor the number that matters sits further down the release: cod clipfish exports to Portugal grew for the second month running, and salted cod to Portugal tripled.
Year to date, Norway has exported seafood worth NOK 115.7 billion, up NOK 2.6 billion or 2 percent. Salmon alone accounted for NOK 12.3 billion of the August total — 153,602 tonnes, up 19 percent in value and 7 percent in volume — the highest export value for salmon in any single month, NOK 19 million above the previous record set in October 2025. Farmed fish made up 81.4 percent of the month’s export value, the highest share ever recorded, a direct consequence of the quota restrictions squeezing wild-caught species. Poland (NOK 2.23 billion, +36 percent), China (NOK 1.4 billion, +34 percent) and the Netherlands (NOK 1.16 billion, +31 percent) were the largest markets; the United States, which raised its tariff on Norwegian seafood to 12.5 percent last month, posted its first value growth of the year at 4 percent but dropped out of the top three.
Portugal takes 80 percent of the cod clipfish
Norway shipped 5,277 tonnes of clipfish worth NOK 658 million in August. Value rose NOK 147 million, or 29 percent, while volume slipped 2 percent, and Portugal, Brazil and Congo-Brazzaville were the largest markets. The two halves of the category are moving in opposite directions. Saithe clipfish volumes fell 22 percent to 2,387 tonnes because very low saithe landings have left Norway’s clipfish industry short of raw material all year. Cod clipfish went the other way: volume up 19 percent to 2,008 tonnes, value up 43 percent to NOK 385 million.
Portugal, which took 80 percent of that cod clipfish volume, drove the swing. Exports to the Portuguese market rose to 1,654 tonnes, up 22 percent on August 2025, and export value to Portugal increased by NOK 93 million, or 43 percent — which implies a monthly export value to Portugal of roughly NOK 310 million (NorthSouth HQ calculation from the reported growth figures). That is more than double the 676 tonnes Portugal took in July, when volumes nearly doubled year on year at a record export price of NOK 211 a kilo, and it reflects the normal seasonal ramp into the autumn and Christmas buying season, when Portuguese demand for bacalhau peaks.
“Still a challenging market”
The Seafood Council was careful not to call a turn. “This is the second month in a row with volume growth for cod clipfish to Portugal, but year to date there is still a decline of 12 percent. Even with the growth of recent months, the market situation in Portugal remains challenging,” said market analyst Eivind Hestvik Brækkan. Record-high prices and limited access to cod have, over time, affected consumer sales, and — as with Norwegian exports — Portuguese grocery sales of bacalhau are down in volume so far this year.
Gudfinna Traustadottir, the Council’s envoy to Portugal, read the same numbers more hopefully: “That export volumes to Portugal are now rising for the second month in a row is therefore a positive signal of a gradual stabilisation in our most important clipfish market.” The first half of 2026 was the weakest for cod clipfish volumes since 1992, so two consecutive months of growth from that base is meaningful without being a recovery; the year-to-date gap will not close before the quota-constrained cod season resets in 2027.
Saltfish triples, farmed cod takes over the fresh trade
The parallel salted-cod trade, where Portugal is also the largest market alongside Canada and Spain, had its first month of volume growth since January. Norway exported 677 tonnes of saltfish worth NOK 85 million in August, up 122 percent in volume and 177 percent in value, with cod making up more than 80 percent of the volume. Portugal again had the largest value growth: exports to Portugal rose by NOK 50 million, or 237 percent, on a volume of 492 tonnes, up 200 percent. The base effect is large — year to date, saltfish volumes to Portugal are still down 26 percent — but after July’s 51 percent collapse in the category, a tripling is not nothing.
One structural shift deserves a note from anyone who buys Norwegian cod. In August, farmed cod made up 72 percent of the export value of fresh cod — the highest share ever and the second month in a row above 70 percent, against 42 percent for the year to date. Fresh farmed cod exports rose 69 percent in volume to 1,388 tonnes and 99 percent in value to NOK 118 million, while fresh wild cod exports fell 45 percent to 546 tonnes as more of the wild catch stayed in Norway for processing. The clipfish that reaches Portuguese shelves is still wild Barents Sea cod, but the raw material behind it is increasingly contested by a fresh-fish trade that now runs on aquaculture.
Why it matters for the corridor
The Norway–Portugal bacalhau trade is the oldest continuous commercial artery between the Nordics and Portugal, and August is the month it starts to matter commercially: importers and processors are stocking for the fourth quarter at price levels that have set records in June and July. Two months of rising volume say Portuguese buyers are absorbing those prices rather than walking away; a 12 percent year-to-date decline says they are absorbing less of the fish than they used to. The Seafood Council’s Lisbon office has framed the autumn as a test of willingness to pay in its largest clipfish market. September’s figures, due in early October, will show whether the pre-Christmas ramp holds at these prices — and whether the retail shelf, where volumes are still falling, follows the export line upward.