Cell Impact Factor: 2-Year vs 5-Year JIF

Cell’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

Cell's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the flagship Cell Press journal Cell receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count; a separate 5-year JIF uses a five-year window instead. Cell (ISSN 0092-8674) is Cell Press's founding, subscription/hybrid flagship life-sciences journal, published continuously since 1974, and it is distinct from Cell Reports, Cell Press's open-access sister journal launched in 2012 -- each carries its own separately computed JIF. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators report Cell's 2-year JIF at roughly 42.5 for the 2024 JCR data year and roughly 45.1 for the 2025 JCR data year, with a separately reported 5-year JIF near 48.9 (not a more-current version of the 2-year figure, but a different window). CASRAI attempted to confirm these directly against Cell Press's own metrics page (cell.com/metrics) on 16 August 2026 and could not (access blocked), so treat all figures as aggregator-reported, not primary-verified -- check jcr.clarivate.com or cell.com/metrics for the current, authoritative figure before citing it formally. Per DORA and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 4 Sept 2026

What the number actually measures

The JIF is a ratio: citations received in a given year to a journal’s citable items (articles and reviews) published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items. Cell (ISSN 0092-8674) is indexed in Clarivate’s Science Citation Index Expanded and receives its own JIF on that basis, computed the same mechanical way as every other JCR-indexed title. Clarivate separately reports a 5-year Impact Factor for Cell, which widens the citation window from two years to five — the two figures are not interchangeable and should always be labelled with which window they use.

Cell’s Impact Factor in 2026: what the named sources actually say

Cell’s Journal Impact Factor is 45.1, for the 2025 JCR data year — the release Clarivate issued in June 2026. The source is Cell’s own publisher metrics panel at cell.com/cell/home, which attributes the figure on-page to “Journal Citation Reports 2025 (Clarivate Analytics, 2026)”. It appears there verbatim as “45.1 | Impact Factor”, retrieved 23 August 2026. That is the publisher restating Clarivate’s number for its own title — not a third-party JCR-tracking aggregator and not a Wikipedia infobox, either of which can lag behind or drift from the release Clarivate actually issued.

Sources disagree, so here are both. An earlier version of this page carried 45.1 as a third-party aggregator figure that CASRAI had not confirmed against the publisher, alongside roughly 42.5 for the 2024 data year. Cell Press’s own metrics panel now confirms 45.1 for the 2025 data year.

The same publisher page also shows a CiteScore of 67.8. That is Elsevier/Scopus’s metric, computed over a four-year window and a broader document set, and it is not a second opinion on the Impact Factor. Quoting the larger number as though it were the JIF is the single most common sourcing error on this metric.

Clarivate republishes the JCR every June, so this figure is current only for the 2025 data year. Re-check it at the publisher’s page or in JCR itself before putting it in a CV, tenure file, grant application or funder report — and say which data year you mean when you cite it.

What CASRAI could verify at source

ISSN: 0092-8674 — Crossref journal record, checked 23 August 2026.
Publisher: Elsevier (Cell Press) — Crossref journal record, checked 23 August 2026.
PubMed / MEDLINE: Currently indexed for MEDLINE; MEDLINE coverage v2n1, May 1974- — NLM Catalog record, checked 23 August 2026.
DOAJ: Not listed in DOAJ (subscription journal) — DOAJ API, checked 23 August 2026.
Journal Impact Factor: 45.1 for the 2025 JCR data year; CiteScore 67.8 (a different metric — see above) — Cell’s own publisher metrics panel at cell.com/cell/home, which attributes the figure on-page to “Journal Citation Reports 2025 (Clarivate Analytics, 2026)”, retrieved 23 August 2026.

Cell vs. Cell Reports: not the same journal, not the same figure

Cell and Cell Reports are both published under the Cell Press imprint, but they are editorially and commercially distinct journals with separately computed JIFs that should never be used interchangeably. Cell is the original 1974 flagship title, subscription/hybrid, with a reported 2-year JIF in the low-to-mid 40s. Cell Reports is a newer (2012-launched), fully open-access, broader-scope journal with a reported JIF in the high-6-to-8 range across recent JCR releases — an order of magnitude lower than Cell’s.

Why this number alone is a poor stand-in for quality

Citation-tracking organizations including DORA, the CoARA coalition, and Clarivate itself caution against over-relying on a single journal-level metric to judge an individual article or researcher. A flagship journal’s JIF is heavily shaped by a small number of highly cited papers and by field-level citation norms.

Counter-example

Cell’s CiteScore (a separate Elsevier/Scopus metric using a four-year citation window and a broader document set) is not the same figure as either its 2-year or 5-year Clarivate JIF, and reporting one as if it were another is a common sourcing error. Similarly, an individual highly cited article published in Cell does not “have” the journal’s JIF — the metric is computed at the journal level, not the article level.

Related terms

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Clarivate refreshes Journal Citation Reports figures every June; treat any specific number on this page as time-stamped to the release named next to it, not a permanent property of the journal, and re-check the source named above after the next June release.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Cell’s current Journal Impact Factor?

Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators report Cell’s 2-year Journal Impact Factor at roughly 45.1 for the 2025 JCR data year (2026 release) and roughly 42.5 for the 2024 JCR data year (2025 release). CASRAI could not confirm the current figure directly against cell.com/metrics as of 16 August 2026 (access blocked); check jcr.clarivate.com or cell.com/metrics directly before citing it formally.

Does Cell also have a 5-year Impact Factor, and is it the same as the 2-year figure?

No, they are different metrics. Aggregators report a 5-year Journal Impact Factor for Cell near 48.9, which uses a five-year citation window rather than two, alongside the 2-year figure of roughly 45.1 (2025 data year). Both are computed the same basic way — citations in the JCR data year divided by the journal’s citable items — but over different windows, so the 5-year number is not a more up-to-date version of the 2-year one.

Is Cell’s Journal Impact Factor the same as Cell Reports’ Journal Impact Factor?

No. Cell and Cell Reports are separate journals under the Cell Press imprint with independently computed JIFs. Cell carries a reported 2-year JIF in the low-to-mid 40s, while Cell Reports carries a reported JIF in the high-6-to-8 range — roughly an order of magnitude lower.

How is Cell’s Journal Impact Factor calculated?

The JIF is a ratio: citations received in a given year to a journal’s citable items (articles and reviews) published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of those citable items.

Does an individual paper published in Cell “have” the journal’s Impact Factor?

No. The JIF is computed at the journal level, not the article level, so no single paper carries Cell’s JIF on its own.

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Cell’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF)"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/cell-impact-factor" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/cell-impact-factor",
  "name": "Cell's Journal Impact Factor (JIF)",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/cell-impact-factor",
  "description": "Cell's Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate-computed, journal-level citation ratio the flagship Cell Press journal Cell receives each year in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) -- citations in the JCR data year to the journal's citable items from the two preceding years, divided by that item count; a separate 5-year JIF uses a five-year window instead. Cell (ISSN 0092-8674) is Cell Press's founding, subscription/hybrid flagship life-sciences journal, published continuously since 1974, and it is distinct from Cell Reports, Cell Press's open-access sister journal launched in 2012 -- each carries its own separately computed JIF. Third-party JCR-tracking aggregators report Cell's 2-year JIF at roughly 42.5 for the 2024 JCR data year and roughly 45.1 for the 2025 JCR data year, with a separately reported 5-year JIF near 48.9 (not a more-current version of the 2-year figure, but a different window). CASRAI attempted to confirm these directly against Cell Press's own metrics page (cell.com/metrics) on 16 August 2026 and could not (access blocked), so treat all figures as aggregator-reported, not primary-verified -- check jcr.clarivate.com or cell.com/metrics for the current, authoritative figure before citing it formally. Per DORA and CoARA guidance, this journal-level figure should not be used as a proxy for the quality of any individual article published in the journal or the merit of its authors.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/publishing#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/cell-impact-factor",
  "sameAs": [],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "author": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
  },
  "datePublished": "2026-07-23T05:08:27",
  "dateModified": "2026-09-04T07:14:44",
  "inLanguage": "en-GB",
  "isAccessibleForFree": true
}

Stop finding out after the fact

$29/month, cancel anytime. Daily digest updates from our analysis, a dashboard holding the same items, and a cited assistant for everything they raise.