Swimming and Snorkelling with Orcas in Tromsø

Swimming and snorkelling with orcas is not banned in Norway’s whale-safari regulation, as published on Lovdata in October 2026, but it is regulated, and Visit Tromsø discourages getting into the water with whales at all: feeding humpbacks and orcas may not notice a swimmer, and the winter sea is dark, cold and fast to change. We list no swim tours. If you want to be as close to the water as a whale tour allows, take a 12-seat RIB from Skjervøy.

See the Skjervøy RIB tour →

What the rules say

Norway’s regulation on whale safari (Forskrift om utøvelse av hvalsafari, 5 December 2019) counts swimming, diving and paddling as whale safari, so the same rules apply in the water as on a boat. It forbids any whale safari that contributes to disturbing the whales in their natural habitat. It also keeps swimmers, divers and paddlers at least 0.4 nautical miles (740 m) from a fishing boat at work, a herring seine or fixed gear, twice the distance it sets for whale boats; around the herring, the fishing fleet and the whales are often in the same water. Breaking the rules can mean a fine or a penalty under the marine resources act.

What may change for 2026-27

After the 2025-26 season, Brim Explorer, Best Arctic, Norwegian Travel and Visit Tromsø-Region asked the authorities, in a press release published by Visit Tromsø, to bring in three measures before the following season: a licence scheme for whale safari, with competence requirements and rules of conduct in the whale areas based on Visit Tromsø’s guidelines, and the licence lost for breaches; a speed limit in areas where whales are; and a ban on snorkelling close to whales. They propose a pilot in Tromsø and Skjervøy.

Their case rests on Brim Explorer’s own survey: 96 observations by its guides between 23 October 2025 and 15 January 2026, from west of Skjervøy to Spildra. It counted 9 to 14 boats on average around the same group of whales at once, and 23 around a single pod at the most; 8 boats in 10 were less than 100 m from the whales and 6 in 10 under 50 m, several held over 20 knots in the whale area, and boats with snorkellers put them in the water inside feeding pods. The regulation on Lovdata, last amended in 2022, contained none of the three measures when we read it in October 2026, so check it again before you book a swim trip for the 2026-27 winter.

Why Visit Tromsø discourages it

Visit Tromsø’s guidance on in-water activities says plainly that getting into the water with whales is discouraged. Its reasons:

• Feeding whales. Humpbacks lunge straight up through the herring when they feed, and a whale busy feeding may not notice a person in the water; competition between species makes the scene more dangerous.
• The water. In this area in winter the sea is cold, visibility under water is poor, and the weather changes fast. Visit Tromsø writes that short in-water trips often fail to see anything for that reason.
• The conditions it asks of operators who do it anyway: a rescue diver present whenever guests are in the water, only a couple of people in the water at a time, one boat per group of whales instead of the three allowed for watching from the deck, and the right insurance.

Is it safe?

Not in the sense a visitor usually means. The risks named above are why Visit Tromsø discourages the activity, and why the boat tours on this site keep everyone on board. If you are weighing a swim trip sold elsewhere, ask whether a rescue diver is on the boat, how many swimmers go in at once, and what the operator does when whales are feeding.

Seeing orcas up close, from the boat

The closest seat a whale tour sells is in a RIB: an open boat about a metre above the water, with a dozen guests, a floating suit and goggles. Arctic Adventure Tours' RIB from Skjervøy spends at least three hours on the water near the whales and is rated 4.8 from 1,295 reviews, from $346 a person (checked October 2026). It takes guests from 14 and at least 140 cm tall.

If a RIB is too cold or too wild for your group, the big catamarans from Tromsø harbour watch the same whales from higher up; catamaran or RIB compares the two, and the best time for whale watching gives the weeks when the orcas are there.

Regulation text from Forskrift om utøvelse av hvalsafari (FOR-2019-12-05-1651), as published on Lovdata and read in October 2026. Guidance on in-water activities and watching distances, and the industry’s call for stricter rules with Brim Explorer’s survey figures, from Visit Tromsø. Tour details from the GetYourGuide listing, read in US dollars on 29 October 2026.