We provide here a curated set of data containing standardized catch biomasses and abundances of key macroplankton and mesopelagic fish taxonomically identified to species or genera or the nearest possible taxonomic group collected by a Macroplankton trawl (~6 m x 6 m mouth opening, non-graded mesh with 3 mm light-opening) from cruises in the Norwegian Sea during the International Ecosystem Survey in the Nordic Seas (IESNS) in May to June 2019 and 2020. The collected material is obtained from standardized V-shaped hauls down to a maximum depth of about 1000 m, although some shallower V-hauls are included either to look at the vertically migrating mesopelagic organisms that enter the epipelagic domain during nighttime hours, or because of depth restrictions due to shallow bottom topography. This dataset holds the biomass and abundance data of species or taxonomically identified categories. Filtered water volume (m³) was determined by calculating the towed horizontal distance (m) from when the trawl was deployed until maximum depth (m) and similarly when retrieved. Then, knowing the maximum depth of the trawl, by trigonometric calculations the trawl path (hypothenuse) during downcast and upcast were derived. The filtered volume was calculated by multiplying the summed towpath distance (m) by the nominal trawl opening of 36 m².