The NIH Public Access Policy is the National Institutes of Health’s requirement that peer-reviewed manuscripts arising from NIH-funded research be deposited in PubMed Central (PMC) and made publicly available. The current version, generally referred to as the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, took effect on July 1, 2025 and eliminated the 12-month embargo that had applied since 2008 — manuscripts are now required to become publicly available at the article’s official date of publication, with zero embargo. This guide covers what the policy actually requires, how it changed in 2024/2025, how it interacts with NIH’s separate Data Management and Sharing Policy, and how researchers and research administrators actually comply with it in practice. For the short definitional entry, see the dictionary term on the NIH Public Access Policy; this guide goes further into the mechanics, timeline, and open questions around its future.
What the policy requires today
Under the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, any peer-reviewed Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) — the final version of a manuscript accepted for journal publication, after peer review but before the publisher’s copyediting and typesetting — that arises in whole or in part from NIH funding and is accepted for publication on or after July 1, 2025 must be:
- Submitted to PubMed Central at the time of acceptance, typically through the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system, either directly by the author or via a publisher that participates in the NIHMS deposit workflow.
- Made publicly available in PMC with zero embargo — that is, no later than the article’s official date of publication, not delayed by any subsequent holding period as the old policy allowed.
- Cited by its resulting PMCID (PubMed Central reference number) in any subsequent NIH application, progress report, or other submission that references that publication, per NIH’s long-standing public access compliance policy for citations.
The policy applies specifically to the peer-reviewed manuscript, not necessarily the publisher’s final formatted version of record — although many publishers now deposit the version of record directly into PMC on the author’s behalf under separate agreements, satisfying the requirement without any separate author action.
How the policy changed: three phases
The Public Access Policy has gone through three distinct phases since it was first introduced, each with a different name, legal basis, and embargo rule:
- 2005 — voluntary. NIH Notice NOT-OD-05-022 requested (but did not require) that NIH-funded investigators submit their final peer-reviewed manuscripts to PMC, beginning May 2, 2005. Compliance was low because deposit was optional.
- 2008 — mandatory, 12-month embargo. Congress made the policy mandatory by statute: Division G, Title II, Section 218 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 (Public Law 110-161), enacted December 26, 2007. NIH implemented the requirement via Notice NOT-OD-08-033, with the deposit requirement effective April 7, 2008. Under this version, publishers and authors could withhold public release in PMC for up to 12 months after publication.
- 2024/2025 — zero embargo. NIH released the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy on December 17, 2024. It was originally scheduled to take effect December 31, 2025, but NIH moved the effective date up via Notice NOT-OD-25-101 (announced April 30, 2025), making it effective for manuscripts accepted on or after July 1, 2025. This version removed the embargo entirely.
Why the embargo was eliminated: the Nelson Memo
The 2024 policy’s zero-embargo requirement is NIH’s agency-specific implementation of a government-wide directive, not a decision NIH made independently. In August 2022, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a memorandum titled “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research,” widely known as the Nelson Memo after Alondra Nelson, who issued it while serving as OSTP’s Acting Director. The memo directed every federal agency that funds research and development to update its public access policy so that federally funded peer-reviewed publications — and the underlying scientific data — become publicly available with no embargo, on a timeline requiring updated agency policies no later than the end of 2025. NIH’s 2024 policy, along with parallel updates at NSF, DOE, NASA, and other funding agencies, is that directive being carried out agency by agency; the Nelson Memo itself does not create obligations on researchers directly, and each agency issues and enforces its own policy.
Note on the Nelson Memo’s current status: as of mid-2026, science-policy reporting (e.g. the AIP FYI newsletter, and congressional appropriations committee language) indicates OSTP may be in the process of reconsidering or repealing the memo under the current administration; that process has not been reported as formally completed. Whatever happens to the memo itself, NIH’s own 2024 Public Access Policy and its July 1, 2025 effective date remain the operative compliance requirement for NIH-funded researchers unless and until NIH itself issues a further change — treat the individual agency policy, not the memo’s uncertain future, as the thing you’re actually required to comply with.
Public Access Policy vs. the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy
These are two separate NIH policies that are frequently — and incorrectly — treated as the same requirement:
- The Public Access Policy governs the peer-reviewed manuscript: the text of a published paper. It requires PMC deposit and applies at the point a manuscript is accepted for publication.
- The NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy, effective January 25, 2023, governs the underlying scientific data generated by NIH-funded research. It requires a Data Management and Sharing Plan submitted at the application/proposal stage, well before any manuscript exists. See CASRAI’s full guide to the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy for its requirements and timeline.
Complying with one does not satisfy the other — a study can be fully compliant with the Public Access Policy (manuscript deposited in PMC) while still being out of compliance with the DMS Policy (no data management plan on file, or data not shared per the plan), and vice versa. Research administrators tracking funder compliance should treat them as two separate checklist items, not one.
How compliance actually works: NIHMS and PMCID citation
In practice, deposit happens one of three ways, depending on the publisher:
- Method A (publisher-deposits): Many publishers, particularly those with an NIH Portfolio agreement, submit the final published article to PMC automatically on the author’s behalf. No author action is needed beyond confirming the paper eventually appears in PMC.
- Method B (NIHMS deposit by author or designee): The author, or a designated submitter such as a co-author or institutional grants office staff, uploads the accepted manuscript files (text and figures) into the NIH Manuscript Submission system. NIHMS then routes the manuscript through an approval step with the corresponding author before it is converted and posted to PMC.
- Method C (publisher deposits the final version directly, per a formal agreement): Some publishers have workflow agreements with NIH under which the publisher submits directly and the manuscript is treated as compliant without separate NIHMS handling.
Whichever method applies, the resulting PMCID must then be cited in any future NIH application, progress report (RPPR), or other submission that references that paper — this citation requirement is a distinct, ongoing compliance obligation, separate from the initial deposit itself, and is one of the most common sources of compliance flags in NIH grant reporting.
Who this applies to
The policy applies to any peer-reviewed, original research article, review, or editorial that (a) arises directly from NIH grant, cooperative agreement, or contract funding, or from NIH’s own intramural research program, and (b) is accepted for publication. It applies regardless of the publisher, the journal’s business model, or whether the journal is open access, subscription, or hybrid — the obligation runs to the manuscript’s funding source, not to the journal it appears in. It does not, on its own, require paying an article processing charge; deposit into PMC is free, though some hybrid or subscription journals separately offer (or require) a paid open-access option that is a distinct commercial transaction, not part of Public Access Policy compliance. See CASRAI’s dictionary entry on the article processing charge if that distinction is relevant to your situation.
How this compares to other funder open-access mandates
The NIH Public Access Policy is a US federal funder mandate specific to NIH; it is a form of green open access (deposit in a repository) rather than a licensing or publishing-model mandate. It is a distinct mechanism from Plan S, the European funder-consortium initiative (cOAlition S) that requires immediate open access with specific licensing terms and, for many participating funders, does not permit the embargoed-repository route at all. A manuscript funded jointly by NIH and a Plan S funder may need to satisfy both sets of requirements simultaneously, since compliance with one does not automatically satisfy the other. Researchers working across US and European funding should check both policies independently rather than assuming a single deposit action covers everything.
Frequently asked questions
When did the zero-embargo requirement take effect?
July 1, 2025, for any Author Accepted Manuscript accepted for publication on or after that date, per NIH Notice NOT-OD-25-101, which accelerated the original December 31, 2025 effective date.
Does the Public Access Policy require paying an open-access fee?
No. PMC deposit itself is free. Any article processing charge a journal separately charges for its own open-access option is a different, publisher-level transaction, not a requirement of the Public Access Policy.
Is the NIH Public Access Policy the same as the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy?
No. The Public Access Policy governs manuscript deposit in PMC; the DMS Policy governs the underlying research data and requires a data management plan submitted at the application stage. They are independent obligations.
What happens if a manuscript isn’t deposited?
Noncompliant publications generally cannot be cited in future NIH applications or progress reports, and NIH has previously delayed or held funding for grants with unresolved public access noncompliance — administrators should track PMCID status as part of standard grant reporting hygiene, not treat it as optional paperwork.
Does this apply to manuscripts accepted before July 1, 2025?
Manuscripts accepted before that date remain subject to the policy version in effect when they were accepted, which for most pre-2025 acceptances means the prior 12-month-embargo rule rather than the zero-embargo requirement.
