Jan Christian Vestre (born 9 October 1986) is a Norwegian jurist, businessperson in the furniture industry, and politician for the Labour Party. He has served as Minister of Health and Care Services since 2024, and Minister of Trade and Industry between 2021 and 2024. Furthermore, he has been a deputy leader of the party since 2023.
Vestre was born in Haugesund on 9 October 1986. He graduated in jurisprudence from the University of Oslo in 2017.
During his youth, Vestre was a member of the Workers' Youth League, and was present at the summer camp on Utøya when Anders Behring Breivik attacked it. He escaped barefoot and ran along the shore, despite bleeding, he never noticed his injuries, and held out for an hour before being rescued.
During summer of 2022, he entered a relationship with German architect Viktoria Millentrup. In April 2025, he confirmed that that they had gotten engaged over Christmas 2024 and had intentions of getting married in the summer of 2026.
Vestre worked as a designer and manager in his family's furniture company, Vestre AS, and won an Entrepreneur of The Year award in 2019.
He took over the leadership of his family's furniture company at the age of 26, following the death of his father.
Vestre served as a political advisor to then Minister of Trade and Industry Trond Giske, from June to October 2013.
On 21 April 2023, ahead of the party convention, the party election committee announced that they would designate Vestre as one of two deputy leaders, alongside Tonje Brenna. He was formally elected during the party conference in May.
A month after the 2025 election, both he and prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre apologised for promises broken from the election campaign, with Vestre empathising his apology on claims about free ferries and debt removal for students. The former part was not retained from earlier and the latter scheme was drastically reduced as detailed in the government's proposed 2026 budget. Vestre later announced that the government would be willing to make changes to both of them during the budget negotiations.
Vestre was elected to the Storting as a regular representative for Oslo at the 2025 election. While serving in government, Farukh Qureshi deputises in his place.
Minister of Trade and Industry
He was appointed Minister of Trade and Industry in Støre's Cabinet on 14 October 2021.
Vestre and Minister of Climate and the Environment Espen Barth Eide announced that the government would work actively to cut emissions, with Vestre noting: "I believe that the richest country in the world must be willing to take some greater risks. The shift we are going through now is the biggest change in recent Norwegian history. The problem here in Norway is not that we have taken too much risk. We have rather been too cowardly to point out a direction and do what works. We no longer have time for that".
Vestre expressed that it is important for Norway to be coordinated with the rest of Europe when it came to decisions about either having standard time permanently or both standard and summer time.
In December, he and fellow ministers Marte Mjøs Persen and Anniken Huitfeldt, and Crown Prince Haakon visited the United States to promote Norwegian interests notably regarding "War, the Arctic, offshore wind, contemporary art and Christmas trees". However, like Persen, he returned to Norway earlier then planned.
On 14 December, Vestre attended a press conference alongside Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, Hadia Tajik and Anette Trettebergstuen to present the government's economic COVID-19 measures. In regards to his field of responsibility, Vestre announced that the national compensation scheme for businesses would be extended. Vestre stated: "We expect owners and managers to act responsibly. The government is clear that the COVID-19 support will go to keep people in work, not for the benefit of the owners".
On 28 December, Vestre expressed that there was no guarantee that measures would be lifted come January 2022. He emphasised with the restaurant service industry, and added that the government saw no other options. He did however state that if the number of cases went down, the government would possibly instigate the process of reopening.
After 100 days in office, Vestre stated that some things he hoped to get done going forwards, would be to possibly buy the state in and up in multiple companies, strengthen climate demands and put a break on executive salaries.