Editorial commentary
A submission fee is a charge levied on an author at the point a manuscript is submitted to a journal, sometimes described by the journal as an administrative or handling charge. It is typically non-refundable — a paper rejected without full peer review generally does not entitle the author to a refund, though some journals make limited exceptions (for example, a desk-reject before any editorial handling occurs). Submission fees are distinct from charges levied only on acceptance, such as the article processing charge (APC) common to open-access journals, or colour and page charges historically levied by some subscription-based journals; a submission fee is paid regardless of whether the manuscript is ultimately accepted.
Submission fees can occur for both open-access and non-open-access journals, and are less common overall than APCs — a research office advising an author on where to submit should check a target journal’s fee structure for both charge types separately, since a journal with no submission fee may still carry a substantial APC on acceptance, and the reverse is also possible.
How it differs from adjacent publishing-fee concepts
- vs. Fee waiver — a fee waiver typically applies to the APC charged on acceptance, not to a submission fee charged up front; a journal that waives its APC for low-income-country authors does not necessarily also waive its submission fee.
- vs. Article processing charge (APC) — charged at different points in the workflow (submission vs. acceptance) and can, in principle, both apply to the same manuscript at the same journal.
References
- Journal-specific fee schedules (submission-fee practice varies by publisher and is disclosed on individual journal author-guidelines pages).
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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