BMJ Open — publication fee
Verified list price, waiver route and what authors actually paid.
Checked 14 October 2026
The BMJ Open article processing charge is £2,390 (list price, before tax), read from the publisher's page on 14 October 2026.
Fees at a glance
| Publisher | BMJ |
|---|---|
| Model | gold OA |
| APC (list) | £2,390 |
| Median actually paid | €2,860 across 40 articles (2025) OpenAPC, incl. VAT, EUR — not converted from list price |
| ISSN | 2044-6055 |
What authors actually paid, by year
OpenAPC records 40 BMJ Open articles paid for by institutions in 2025, median €2,860 (range €2,135 – €3,390). Across the 13 years with at least five reported articles, the median moved from €1,500 (2012) to €2,860 (2025). These are amounts actually invoiced to institutions, in euros including VAT, so they reflect agreements, discounts and exchange rates — not the list price above.
| Year | Route | Articles reported | Median paid | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | gold OA | 5 | €1,500 | €1,417 – €1,800 |
| 2014 | gold OA | 86 | €1,698 | €166 – €3,163 |
| 2015 | gold OA | 132 | €1,897 | €345 – €2,301 |
| 2016 | gold OA | 211 | €1,680 | €189 – €2,392 |
| 2017 | gold OA | 266 | €1,559 | €696 – €2,280 |
| 2018 | gold OA | 255 | €1,561 | €760 – €2,280 |
| 2019 | gold OA | 225 | €1,672 | €150 – €2,397 |
| 2020 | gold OA | 161 | €1,562 | €572 – €2,735 |
| 2021 | gold OA | 192 | €1,754 | €220 – €2,684 |
| 2022 | gold OA | 233 | €2,107 | €139 – €3,275 |
| 2023 | gold OA | 168 | €2,566 | €1,141 – €3,505 |
| 2024 | gold OA | 130 | €2,741 | €1,200 – €3,760 |
| 2025 | gold OA | 40 | €2,860 | €2,135 – €3,390 |
Source: OpenAPC (ODbL), Bielefeld University Library; years with fewer than five reported articles are omitted. EUR, incl. VAT.
Waivers and discounts
Peer review, speed and licence
| Submission to publication | 32 weeks average stated by the journal |
|---|---|
| Peer review | Open |
| Licence | CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-ND |
| Author keeps copyright | No |
| Plagiarism screening | Yes |
| Long-term preservation | Portico, LOCKSS |
| Open access since | 2011 |
What BMJ Open states in its record in the Directory of Open Access Journals, read 16 October 2026. The journal supplies these fields; DOAJ does not audit turnaround times. DOAJ record.
Sources for this page
- Fee
- bmjopen.bmj.com
- Checked
- 14 October 2026
- Paid by year
- OpenAPC (ODbL), per-year medians, n≥5
- Review & licence
- DOAJ (CC0), read 16 October 2026
List prices before tax, waivers, agreements or country-tiered adjustments. Reconfirm on the publisher's page before submitting.
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