An extended finite element method (XFEM) is presented for the simulation of extrudate swell. A temporary arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) scheme is incorporated to cope with the movement of the free surface. The main advantage of the proposed method is that the movement of the free surface can be simulated on a fixed Eulerian mesh without any need of re-meshing. The swell ratio of an upper-convected Maxwell fluid is compared with those of the moving boundary-fitted mesh problems of the conventional ALE technique, and those of Crochet & Keunings (1980). The proposed XFEM combined with the temporary ALE scheme can provide similar accuracy to the boundary-fitted mesh problems for low Deborah numbers. For high Deborah numbers, the method seems to be more stable for the extrusion problem.