Fish catch and production 2023

In 2023, a total of 143 million kilos of fish was caught and farmed in Finland. The total catch includes fish caught by commercial and recreational fishers. Farmed fish means food fish produced for consumption and fish supplied for fishing ponds.

• The catch volume ranged from 105 to 193 million kilos in 1980–2023. In 2023, the total catch was 128 million kilos, up by three million kilos from the previous year.
• Baltic herring and sprat caught by commercial fishers accounted for two-thirds of the total catch.
• Commercial marine fishers caught 90 million kilos of fish, being 3 million kilos more than in 2022. Recreational fishers caught 5.6 million kilos of fish from sea areas in 2022.
• The commercial inland fishery catch was 4.9 million kilos, being slightly less than in the previous year. Recreational fishers caught 28 million kilos of fish from inland waters in 2022.
• Measured by quantity, vendace was the most important species in commercial inland fishery, accounting for 41% of the catch. Three quarters of the commercial catch of pikeperch was caught in inland waters. Recreational fishers caught more than 80% of the total catch of pikeperch.
• The recreational catch of 33.5 million kilos in 2022 accounted then for 27% of Finland’s total catch.
• In 2023, 15.2 million kilos of fish were farmed for human consumption in Finland. Of this, rainbow trout accounted for 95%, with the remaining proportion mainly consisting of European whitefish.
• In 2023, registered commercial fishers totalled 4,900, more than 200 fishers more than in the year before. Fishers numbered 2,140 in sea areas and 1,700 in inland waters. Full-time fishers numbered 400 in sea areas and 360 in inland waters. Aquaculture employed 1 090 people. The number of recreational fishers was almost 1.8 million in 2022.