ABSTRACTNear‐infrared transmittance spectroscopy was used to determine the average fat content in farmed Atlantic salmon fillets with skin and scales. The fat content was 5.7–17.6% and weight range 1.0–5.4 kg. A partial least square regression including 43 salmon resulted in a multivariate prediction correlation of 0.97 and a root mean square error of cross validation of 0.75%. Regression models using 6 to 9 wavelengths in the 850–1048 nm range gave somewhat lower prediction errors than a model using 100 wavelengths. Results showed that NIR transmittance was suited to determine fat content nondestructively in whole salmon fillets with skin and scales.