BioRxiv submission guidelines require a single PDF (or Word file plus separate figure files), a free author-area registration, an article-category selection, and a two-step in-house-plus-Affiliate screening that typically clears in 24-48 hours. There is no submission fee, no mandatory template, and no peer review before posting. This guide walks first-time authors through each stage, the templates available, and the reasons manuscripts most often get sent back.
bioRxiv is the life-sciences preprint server operated by the non-profit openRxiv; a preprint is a complete, citable manuscript posted before or during formal peer review, and bioRxiv assigns it a Crossref DOI (prefix 10.1101) as soon as screening is passed. Clinical trial reports and most epidemiology studies must instead go to bioRxiv’s sister server, medRxiv — submitting one of these to bioRxiv is itself a common rejection reason, covered in section four below.
- 1. What are bioRxiv’s submission requirements?
- 2. Setting up your bioRxiv author area
- 3. Choosing a manuscript template
- 4. What happens after you submit (timeline and screening)
- 5. Common rejection reasons and how to avoid them
- 6. Frequently asked questions
- 7. Implications for research offices
1. What are bioRxiv’s submission requirements?
bioRxiv does not enforce a house style, but it does enforce a fixed submission format and a content-eligibility test. The manuscript must be unpublished at the time of deposit, all co-authors must have consented to posting, and the work must fall within a relevant life-sciences subject category.
| Submission route | What you upload | Conversion |
|---|---|---|
| Single PDF | Full text, figures and tables combined | None needed — this is the simplest route |
| Word + separate figures | Word file for text/tables; figures as JPEG, TIFF, EPS or PowerPoint | bioRxiv’s automated engine builds the PDF |
| LaTeX | Manuscript converted to PDF before upload (LaTeX source may accompany it as Supplemental Material) | Author-side conversion required |
Large primary datasets belong in a community database such as GenBank or the Protein Data Bank rather than as Supplemental Material, in line with the Fort Lauderdale data-sharing guidelines that bioRxiv references directly in its submission guide.
2. Setting up your bioRxiv author area
Every submission starts with a free account on the bioRxiv Manuscript Processing System at submit.biorxiv.org. The bioRxiv author area is where you register, start a new submission, continue a saved draft, proof a converted manuscript, and later submit revisions.
- Register with an institutional or personal email address — no institutional affiliation is required to create an account.
- Enter the author area and select “Submit a New Manuscript.”
- Upload files, enter co-author details for every listed author, and add funder names and grant numbers.
- Select an article category: New Results, Confirmatory Results, or Contradictory Results.
- Choose a distribution licence — CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND, CC0, or no reuse.
Copyright remains with the author throughout. Once a version is posted, it cannot be deleted, but authors can submit a revision at any time before journal acceptance via the same author-area screen.
3. Choosing a manuscript template
A bioRxiv template is optional, not mandatory — the platform explicitly states it does not require a particular article format or style, and many authors simply reuse the formatting of their target journal. Two community-maintained options cover most first-time authors.
- Word template: a community-built .docx template on GitHub styled after published bioRxiv papers, useful if you want a clean starting structure without building one from scratch.
- bioRxiv LaTeX template: several Overleaf templates are built specifically for bioRxiv preprints and can often be re-purposed for the eventual journal submission, saving reformatting time later in the pipeline.
Whichever route you choose, convert LaTeX output to PDF before upload — bioRxiv’s system does not compile .tex source directly.
4. What happens after you submit (timeline and screening)
Submitted manuscripts go through two screening stages before posting. In-house staff first check completeness and confirm the article type is eligible; volunteer Principal Investigators known as bioRxiv Affiliates then assess whether the work constitutes genuine biological research and whether it poses any public-harm or biosecurity risk.
This combined process is the answer to a frequent search — bioRxiv submission time — and typically completes within 24-48 hours of upload. Once approved, the PDF posts immediately; conversion to full-text HTML and XML can take a further 1-2 days, so the machine-readable version usually lags the PDF by up to 48 hours.
| Stage | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| Registration and upload | Immediate |
| In-house completeness/eligibility check | Same day to 24 hours |
| Affiliate biosecurity/scope review | Within 24-48 hours total |
| PDF posting after approval | Immediate |
| Full-text HTML/XML conversion | Up to 48 additional hours |
5. Common rejection reasons and how to avoid them
bioRxiv’s own screening documentation and content-scope rules point to a consistent set of avoidable rejections for first-time authors.
- Wrong content type: case reports, narrative reviews, editorials, letters, opinion pieces, hypotheses without new data, and laboratory protocols without accompanying results are all excluded from bioRxiv’s scope.
- Wrong server: clinical trial results and most epidemiology studies must go to medRxiv, not bioRxiv — this single misrouting error is one of the most common first-submission mistakes.
- Already published: a manuscript that has already been accepted by a journal cannot be deposited as a new bioRxiv submission.
- Missing author consent: every listed co-author must have agreed to posting before submission; disputes here stall or block screening.
- Biosecurity or dual-use concerns: Affiliates specifically screen for material that could pose a health or biosecurity risk, which can delay or prevent posting even for otherwise sound science.
- Non-scientific or promotional content: bioRxiv is explicitly not a channel for news, product advertisements, or policy statements.
6. Frequently asked questions
Can anyone submit to bioRxiv?
Yes — any author whose manuscript concerns a relevant scientific field, is unpublished, and has the consent of all co-authors can deposit it after free registration. No institutional affiliation is required, and there is no submission fee.
When should you submit to bioRxiv?
A manuscript can be submitted at any point before journal publication. Once a journal has formally published the paper, it can no longer be newly deposited as a bioRxiv preprint, though the platform still allows revisions of an existing preprint right up to journal acceptance.
How long does a bioRxiv submission take?
Screening typically completes within 24-48 hours of upload, after which the PDF posts immediately. The full-text HTML and XML version follows separately and can take up to 48 further hours to appear.
How much does it cost to submit to bioRxiv?
There is no charge for registration or for depositing an article. bioRxiv funds screening and hosting as a non-profit service operated by openRxiv rather than through author-facing fees.
7. Implications for research offices and institutions
Research-administration teams increasingly track preprints as part of grant-compliance and output reporting, not just publication records. The U.S. National Institutes of Health has, since Notice NOT-OD-17-050, explicitly permitted investigators to cite preprints — including bioRxiv postings — in grant applications and progress reports, and cOAlition S’s Plan S framework recognises preprints as a valid interim compliance route ahead of a peer-reviewed version.
Because a bioRxiv DOI is assigned at posting and persists across revisions, institutions can use it as a stable identifier to link the preprint, the eventual journal version, and contributor metadata. Where a project already uses the CRediT contributor role taxonomy to record who did what — CASRAI originated CRediT in 2014, and the taxonomy is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022 — carrying those role assignments into the preprint stage keeps authorship records consistent from first deposit through final publication.
bioRxiv’s direct-transfer (B2J) programme, which now spans more than 190 partner journals and peer-review services, also removes a second manual re-entry step for research-office staff supporting authors through submission — files and metadata move directly from the bioRxiv author area to the receiving journal without being re-uploaded.
Building preprinting into standard practice
For first-time authors, the practical barrier to bioRxiv is low: no fee, no mandatory template, and a screening turnaround measured in hours rather than weeks. The remaining friction is almost entirely about content fit — choosing the right server, the right article category, and confirming every co-author has consented before upload.
Institutions that build preprint deposit into standard research-administration workflows — alongside DOI tracking, contributor-role records, and funder-mandate checks — turn a one-off submission task into a repeatable, auditable step in the research lifecycle.
