The leading portion of a DOI before the first forward slash, of the form 10.NNNN where 10 is the directory indicator for DOI under the Handle System and NNNN is a numeric (or alphanumeric) string assigned by the DOI Registration Agency to a specific registrant.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 10 Jul 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
10.1038 (held by Springer Nature for Nature-family content).
Is an instance
10.5281 (held by Zenodo / CERN for repository deposits).

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
The '10.' is not the prefix by itself — the prefix includes the registrant block.
Not an instance
A publisher's ISSN is not a DOI prefix.

Editorial commentary

DOI prefixes are unique per registrant and are issued by the Registration Agency (Crossref or DataCite for research outputs). A registrant such as a publisher or repository may hold one or more prefixes — large publishers often hold dozens that reflect imprints, acquisitions, or product lines. The prefix on its own does not identify a specific content type and is not parseable: prefix 10.1038 has historically been associated with Nature Publishing Group but says nothing intrinsic about a specific article.

References

International DOI Foundation, 'DOI Handbook'.

Also known as

DOI registrant prefix

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="DOI prefix"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doi-prefix" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doi-prefix",
  "name": "DOI prefix",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doi-prefix",
  "description": "The leading portion of a DOI before the first forward slash, of the form 10.NNNN where 10 is the directory indicator for DOI under the Handle System and NNNN is a numeric (or alphanumeric) string assigned by the DOI Registration Agency to a specific registrant.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/persistent-identifiers#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/doi-prefix",
  "sameAs": [
    "DOI registrant prefix"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-07-10T02:06:20",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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