Journals published in the United States: who charges authors and how much

Read on the agencies’ own pages (several through archived copies where the live site blocks automated reading), checked 6 October 2026

NIH: public access without an embargo

• The updated NIH Public Access Policy was announced on 17 December 2024 and took effect on 1 July 2025 for manuscripts accepted on or after that date. It replaced the 2008 policy, which allowed an embargo of up to 12 months.
• An accepted manuscript must reach PubMed Central on acceptance and become public on the official publication date. It covers any peer-reviewed manuscript resulting from NIH funding in whole or in part, whether or not the principal investigator is an author.
• There are two routes: the author submits the accepted manuscript through the NIH Manuscript Submission system, or a journal with a formal agreement with the National Library of Medicine deposits the final article. Depositing is free.
• Publication costs, including APCs, are allowable when they meet NIH’s existing cost principles — the position before any cap.

NIH: a proposed limit on publication costs

On 8 July 2025 the NIH Director said the agency would cap allowable publication costs from fiscal year 2026. The only notice so far, NOT-OD-25-138, is a request for information released on 30 July 2025 with responses due on 15 September 2025; it floated options such as $2,000 per publication including APCs and other fees, with a proposed start of 1 January 2026. NIH’s Office of Science Policy said it had received over 900 comments and would issue a final policy in 2026. On 5 October 2026 we found no adopted cap on NIH’s public access page, but check the NIH Guide before you budget. Details and how the options compare with real prices: The proposed NIH limit.

Other federal funders

• The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy memo of 25 August 2022 asked agencies to make federally funded publications public without embargo or delay, to update their policies by 31 December 2025, and to let researchers budget reasonable publication costs.
• NSF: for awards made on or after 22 January 2026 the 12-month embargo no longer applies. Depositing the accepted manuscript in NSF’s Public Access Repository meets the requirement at no cost; fees for the published version are allowable but not required.
• Department of Energy: accepted manuscripts go to OSTI and DOE PAGES, and reasonable publication fees are allowable.

Checking a journal and finding support

• The PubMed Central journal list shows which journals have an agreement to deposit articles; NLM selects journals for MEDLINE through a documented application and evaluation process.
• The open policy finder (formerly Sherpa Romeo, run by Jisc in the UK) checks a journal against funder policies.
• University of California authors can check coverage in the California Digital Library’s Journal Open Access Lookup Tool; most UC agreements offer up to full coverage of open access fees and others a discount. The Big Ten Academic Alliance signed a two-year agreement with Springer Nature in May 2025 for unlimited open access in Springer’s hybrid journals for its authors.

Sources for this section

• NIH — Public access
• NIH — NOT-OD-25-047, Public Access Policy and NOT-OD-25-101, effective date
• NIH — NOT-OD-25-048, allowable costs
• NIH Director — statement on allowable publication costs, 8 July 2025
• NIH — NOT-OD-25-138, request for information
• NIH Office of Science Policy — public comment update
• OSTP — Public access memo, 25 August 2022
• NSF — PAPPG 24-1 Supplement 2
• Department of Energy — Public Access Plan
• PubMed Central — Journal list and NLM — MEDLINE overview
• Jisc — Open policy finder
• University of California — Publishing discounts and California Digital Library — Open access agreements
• Big Ten Academic Alliance — Springer Nature agreement