Timelines
When the waiver rules changed
A waiver policy is a moving target. Publishers switch a route from on-request to automatic, freeze a country snapshot, or open a portfolio in full — and rarely announce it where authors will see it. This is the dated record.
First entries. This chronology is being built out from the
policy pages we already track. Dates are taken from each publisher's own statements; see the linked
source on every row. Spotted a change we've missed? Report it.
Dated changes
| When | Publisher | What changed | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 2022 | American Chemical Society | Freezes waiver eligibility to the July 2022 World Bank income snapshot. Later reclassifications do not move a country until ACS updates the snapshot. | policy |
| 2023 | Annual Reviews | Completes its Subscribe-to-Open conversion: 2023 volumes open with no article processing charge for any author. 2024 and 2025 follow. | policy |
| 1 Jan 2024 | American Physical Society | Ends the waiver-request route. Reductions for eligible corresponding authors become automatic; no request is accepted from this date. | policy |
| Jan 2024 | EMBO Press | Moves to fully open access. The waiver now runs on the Springer Nature framework (Research4Life Group A full, Group B 50%), plus discretionary support. | policy |
| Jan 2025 | Microbiology Society | Launches an EIFL partner-country agreement covering 33 countries, extending free open access across the whole portfolio, hybrid and fully OA alike. | policy |
| through 2026 | Optica Publishing Group | Continues its temporary extension of full waivers to corresponding authors in Ukraine, scheduled to run through 2026. | policy |
Ordered oldest to newest. “Automatic” means no waiver request is needed; “on request” means an author who does not ask is billed in full. The difference in timing is often the difference between paying nothing and paying everything.