This dataset is a component of the PAN-Arctic data collection of benthic BIOtas (PANABIO). It contains a total of 3,277 presence records of 627 macrobenthic taxa (species to genus level) identified in 32 van Veen grab samples taken at 32 stations located in the Barents Sea and surrounding waters at water depths of 62–512 m during four Norwegian cruises between 2002 and 2005. The dataset is also available in a PostgreSQL-based data warehouse that can be accessed and queried through an open-access frontend web service at https://critterbase.awi.de/panabio.