Nature Communications: Impact Factor, APC and Submission Guide

Nature Communications launched in April 2010 and is the fully open-access, multidisciplinary journal of the Nature Portfolio. It publishes research in all areas of the biological, health, physical, chemical, Earth, social, mathematical, applied and engineering sciences, continuously online rather than in issues. It is indexed in DOAJ, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar.

This guide gathers what authors look up before submitting: the impact factor and other metrics, the correct abbreviation, how the editors decide, the word and display-item limits, the article processing charge, the LaTeX question, the figure specifications and a checklist. Everything comes from nature.com and Springer Nature, except the CiteScore, which comes from Scopus. All pages were checked on 8 November 2026 and are listed under Sources.

Nature Communications impact factor and metrics

The journal's metrics page gives these figures, all labelled 2025:

The previous values, which the journal-information page still showed when we checked, were a 2024 impact factor of 15.7 and a 5-year impact factor of 17.2. The 2025 figures are the ones Clarivate released in June 2026. Scopus gives CiteScores of 23.4 for 2024 and 24.9 for 2023, so the journal's citation rate has been broadly stable.

On speed, the metrics page gives a median of 9 days from submission to first editorial decision and 242 days from submission to acceptance. (Other journal pages give 8 or 10 days for the first decision. All three describe the same thing: an editorial verdict in about a week and a half.)

Nature Communications abbreviation

The journal states that the correct abbreviation for abstracting and indexing is Nat. Commun. Article metadata and the "Cite this article" text on nature.com use the same abbreviation without the full stops, Nat Commun, as in: Cao, TP., Liao, GR., Cheng, TY. et al. Sideways lipid presentation by the antigen-presenting molecule CD1c. Nat Commun 17, 998 (2026). Use whichever form your target journal's reference style calls for.

Acceptance rate and editorial process

Nature Communications does not publish a current acceptance rate. The only official figure is from an April 2011 editorial that expected about 20% of submissions to be published, which is too old to rely on now.

What the journal does describe is its process:

1. Editorial assessment. Each new submission is assigned to a primary editor, who reads it and consults the other editors. Papers that meet the editorial criteria go to external referees.
2. Peer review and revision. Revisions have a deadline, typically two months, and a maximum of two resubmissions is considered for each manuscript.
3. Transparent peer review. Every primary research paper submitted from 1 November 2022 is published with a peer review file containing the reviewers' comments and the authors' rebuttal letters.

Double-anonymized peer review is available as an option.

Article types and word limits

The Article is the main research format. Its limits are where most reformatting happens.

A 2019 quick-guide PDF on nature.com still mentions an abstract of about 150 words; the current Article page says 200, and that is the limit to follow.

Other content types:

• Review: title up to 15 words, abstract under 100 words, main text under 6,000 words, up to 8 display items, no more than 100 references and no more than three authors. Perspectives use the same format and also need a synopsis.
• Comment: abstract under 40 words, no longer than 1,500 words, up to 15 references and at most 2 display items.
• Matters Arising: ideally no more than 1,200 words and up to 15 references. They carry no article processing charge.
• Registered Reports: Stage 2 manuscripts follow the Article format, and the APC is payable.

Open access and the APC

Nature Communications is fully open access: authors submitting from 20 October 2014 onwards are required to publish open access. The current article processing charge is:

£5,490 / $7,350 / €6,150, plus VAT or local taxes where they apply.

• When the price is set: the APC is fixed by the date of acceptance, not submission.
• Other charges: there are no submission fees and no page charges.
• Licence: CC BY or CC BY-NC-ND. Check whether your funder requires CC BY.
• Waivers and discounts: waivers are available for corresponding authors in the world's lowest-income countries. Under Springer Nature's policy, authors in lower-middle-income economies with a GDP below 200 billion US dollars can get a 50% discount. Request the waiver or discount at submission.

How to submit to Nature Communications

1. Skip the presubmission enquiry. Nature Communications does not consider them; submit the full paper.
2. Prepare one file. Initial submissions are format-flexible, with no required structure. Upload a single Word, TeX/LaTeX or PDF file of up to 30 MB. High-resolution figure files are requested only after acceptance.
3. Write the cover letter. The journal asks for four things:
   • the corresponding author's affiliation and contact details;
   • a short case for the work's importance and why it suits Nature Communications' broad readership;
   • names and contact details of qualified reviewers, plus any referees you want excluded (excluded scientists must be named);
   • whether you have discussed the work with a Nature Communications editor before.
4. Complete the policy requirements. The journal's policy page lists what is checked at initial submission. Life sciences papers need the reporting summary.
5. Prepare data and code statements. A Data Availability statement goes in the manuscript and in the submission system. If custom code or an algorithm is central to the conclusions, add a Code Availability statement, and make the code available to editors and reviewers at submission.
6. Submit through the Nature Communications manuscript tracking system.

Preprints do not compromise novelty, and since June 2020 authors can opt into the In Review service, which posts the submission as a preprint while it is being reviewed. A paper reviewed at another Nature Portfolio journal can come through the automated transfer service, with the reviews; see our Nature guide for that route.

Is there a Nature Communications LaTeX template?

Not a journal-specific one. Nature Communications does not use a Word template, and for LaTeX it accepts any standard class file, such as article.cls, revtex.cls or amsart.cls. Two details matter. BibTeX bibliography files are not accepted, so put the formatted reference list in the main .tex file. And if you want a ready-made template, Springer Nature's own LaTeX template package (the December 2024 version) can be used for submissions to any Springer Nature journal, including the Nature Portfolio; it is linked from the Springer Nature LaTeX author support page and on Overleaf.

Nature Communications figure requirements

Nature Communications publishes its own figure specifications, which differ slightly from Nature's:

The 1 pt minimum line weight is the rule that most often fails. Many plotting programs default to thinner lines, and Nature's own guide allows lines down to 0.25 pt, so a figure reused from a Nature submission needs its lines checked. The journal also no longer publishes, or sends for review, any manuscript that uses the "Lena" test image.

Check the pixel counts against those widths with the image DPI checker, and compare these specifications with other publishers' in journal figure requirements by publisher.

Source data and image integrity

• Source data: provide the numerical data underlying every graph and chart, and uncropped versions of any gels or blots.
• Image integrity: the Nature Portfolio image integrity policy applies. Adjustments must be applied equally to the whole image and to the controls. No cloning or healing tools may be used. Images from different times or places must not be merged into one image, and if they must be shown side by side, the borders have to be marked and explained in the legend.
• AI: large language models cannot be authors, and the journal's policy page points to Nature Portfolio's rules on generative AI images. Do not put AI-generated imagery in research figures.

References

Nature Communications uses standard Nature reference style: numbered in order of citation, with all authors listed unless there are six or more, in which case only the first author is given, followed by "et al." Keep to about 70 references for an Article.

Pre-submission checklist for Nature Communications

• The paper is in scope and written for a broad, multidisciplinary readership.
• Title of 15 words or fewer, and an abstract of 200 words or fewer with no references.
• Main text of 5,000 words or fewer, Methods under 3000 and each legend 350 words or fewer.
• No more than 10 display items, or 4 if the main text is under 2,000 words.
• About 70 references or fewer, in Nature style.
• Single Word, LaTeX or PDF file of 30 MB or less; for LaTeX, references inside the .tex file.
• Cover letter with contacts, significance, suggested and excluded reviewers by name, and any prior contact with an editor.
• Data Availability statement, and a Code Availability statement with the code accessible if custom code is central.
• Reporting summary and policy requirements complete.
• Figures planned for 88 or 180 mm, with photographs at 1,040 or 2,080 pixels wide or more, lines at least 1 pt, sans-serif text and lower-case bold panel labels.
• Line art kept as vector EPS, AI or PDF, and colour images in RGB.
• Legends written consistently; the figure legend generator helps here.
• Colours checked in the colorblind simulator.
• Source data and uncropped blots ready.
• APC budgeted at £5,490 / $7,350 / €6,150, or a waiver requested at submission.

Related guides and tools

Our journal submission figure checklist covers the checks every journal shares. If Nature Communications is your second choice after a transfer from Nature, read the Nature guide for the differences in figure widths and line weights. For other broad open-access options, see Science Advances and eLife. For PNAS and JAMA, we set out the same details.

The graphical abstract maker produces a one-image summary of a paper for talks, posters and social posts once the work is out. If you also publish in chemistry journals that ask for a table-of-contents image, the TOC graphics generator covers that format. Keep AI-generated images out of the research figures themselves.

Sources

Checked 8 November 2026.

• Nature Communications: journal metrics (2025 impact factors, other metrics, median times, usage)
• Nature Communications: journal information (2024 impact factors; fully open access)
• Nature Communications: aims and scope (scope, abbreviation, indexing)
• Nature Communications: Article format (limits, format-flexible submission, presubmission enquiries)
• Nature Communications: how to submit (files, cover letter, LaTeX, figures, references, source data, open access since 2014)
• Nature Communications: commissioned content, Matters Arising and Registered Reports
• Nature Communications: editorial process (assessment, revisions, excluded reviewers, preprints, transfers)
• Nature Communications: policy requirements (data and code availability, AI)
• Nature Communications: transparent peer review FAQ
• Nature Communications: open access (APC, licences, waivers)
• Nature Communications: our commitment to authors (first-decision time)
• Nature Communications editorial, April 2011 (historical publication rate)
• Springer Nature: APC waivers and discounts
• Springer Nature: LaTeX author support (template package)
• Nature Portfolio: image integrity and standards
• Scopus: Nature Communications source profile (CiteScore)