Monitoring cow’s energy status at the individual level in early lactation is important for management, but also for breeding purposes. Energy status of a cow can be estimated by calculating the energy balance (EB) from cow’s energy intake and output. Alternatively, indicator traits such as body weight (BW) and body condition score (BCS) changes and milk fat-protein ratio (FP) have been proposed. However, precision of these predictions has been low. This may be related to the lack of precision in estimated EB itself, because standard estimates for energy requirements are used in its calculation. We used the plasma nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA) concentration as a biomarker of energy mobilization and energy status, and addressed associations between NEFA concentration and energy status indicators. The data included 10032 daily BW, intake and milk, 279 BCS, and 261 NEFA measurements of 56 Nordic Red primiparous dairy cows. Plasma samples for NEFA were collected twice on lactation wk 2 and 3 and once on wk 20. The milk samples were taken on the same days as NEFA samples and on monthly test days. Daily BWs were smoothened by a regression model with fixed effect of days in milk and random animal part. The NEFA concentration on wk 20 was considered as base level and deviations from base level (dNEFA) were used in calculations. The mean (±sd) ECM (kg/d), milk fat and protein (%), BW (kg) and BCS (1–5) were 30.3 (±4.60), 4.43 (±0.51), 3.59 (±0.32), 574 (±53), and 3.19 (±0.38), respectively. On lactation wk 2 and 3 the average NEFA concentrations were 0.704 (±0.363) and 0.526 (±0.275), and 0.123 (±0.035) mmol/l on lactation wk 20. From all indicators daily BW change had the highest correlation (0.57) with NEFA, followed by daily FP (0.53) and BCS change (−0.20). To predict dNEFA by available indicators, a multiple linear regression model was developed. The best fit was achieved with a model including BW change, FP, BCS and its change, BCS*BCS change, and days in milk. The correlation between predicted and observed dNEFA was 0.77, which was higher than the correlation (0.69) between dNEFA and EB.