This dataset is a component of the PAN-Arctic data collection of benthic BIOtas (PANABIO) and has been collated during the Census of Marine Life project Arctic Ocean Diversity (ArcOD; http://www.arcodiv.org/). It contains a total of 6,185 presence records of 98 benthic taxa (species to genus level) identified in 2,565 samples taken by means of various grabs and towed gears at 2,565 stations located in several Arctic seas at water depths of 0–4,000 m during 232 cruises between 1800 and 2004. 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.