The OMB publication cost ban is a proposed revision to 2 CFR 200.461, published in the Federal Register on 29 May 2026, that would make article processing charges (APCs), page charges and colour-figure fees categorically unallowable on federal research awards unless a project specifically budgets and pre-approves them. It arrives while the Nelson Memo’s zero-embargo mandate still requires the same federally funded researchers to make their papers immediately, freely available — a collision research offices need to plan for now, not after the 1 October 2026 effective date.
In plain terms, the OMB publication cost ban is a default-flip: where 2 CFR 200.461 today allows publication costs as “necessary for the performance of the Federal award,” OMB’s proposed rule presumes them unallowable unless a federal statute requires otherwise or the awarding agency approves them case by case.
- What does the proposed 2 CFR 200.461 rule actually change?
- How does the ban collide with the Nelson Memo’s zero-embargo mandate?
- What happens to subscriptions, transformative deals and the international picture?
- What should research offices negotiate before October 2026?
- Answer-first: quick questions on publication costs
- Implications and outlook
What does the proposed 2 CFR 200.461 rule actually change?
The Office of Management and Budget’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance” (Federal Register, 29 May 2026, docket 2026-10817), rewrites large sections of the Uniform Guidance in 2 CFR Part 200, including a reversal of §200.461’s default treatment of publication costs.
Today, publication and printing costs — including APCs at open-access journals and page or colour-figure charges at hybrid titles — are allowable when they report on federally supported work and are levied impartially. Under the proposed text, APCs and “similar fees such as open access fees for professional journal publications” become unallowable except where federal law compels payment or the agency grants case-by-case approval. Comments were due 13 July 2026, though the Council on Governmental Relations has requested an extension; the rule, if finalised as drafted, takes effect 1 October 2026.
Two consequences follow directly. First, publication spending long absorbed informally into supplies budgets must become an explicit, pre-approved line item at award time. Second, the same NPRM proposes restricting §200.454, which today makes “subscriptions to business, professional, and technical periodicals” allowable; the revised text adds academic periodicals to the unallowable list, though Authors Alliance’s analysis of the NPRM notes it remains genuinely unclear whether OMB intends this to reach institutional library budgets or only project-specific subscriptions.
How does the ban collide with the Nelson Memo’s zero-embargo mandate?
The Nelson Memo is the August 2022 Office of Science and Technology Policy directive, “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research,” which instructed every federal agency funding at least $100 million in research and development to eliminate the optional 12-month embargo on peer-reviewed manuscripts and data. Agency policies implementing that directive — including NIH’s revised Public Access Policy (NOT-OD-25-047) and NSF’s public access policy update (PRPD-25-001) — took effect largely across 2024 and 2025, and now require immediate deposit of the accepted manuscript with no embargo period.
The Nelson Memo did not treat compliance as costless. It explicitly directed agencies to allow researchers to include reasonable publication costs as allowable expenses in research budgets — the same cost category §200.461 would now presume unallowable. Immediate open access is typically achieved one of three ways: paying an APC for gold open access, depositing the manuscript under green open access, or paying through an institutional transformative (read-and-publish) agreement. The proposed rule directly restricts the first route, is largely neutral toward the second, and creates real ambiguity for the third, since indirect-cost-funded transformative agreements do not fit naturally into case-by-case, award-level pre-approval.
One provision is conspicuously untouched: the federal purpose licence at 2 CFR 200.315(b) — the legal mechanism agencies use to deposit grant-funded manuscripts in public-access repositories — remains in the proposed text as drafted. The legal basis for zero-embargo repository deposit survives even as the funding route for paid open access narrows. Institutions cannot assume the mandate will soften just because the money is harder to find.
What happens to subscriptions, transformative deals and the international picture?
Read-and-publish agreements sit awkwardly across both proposed changes. Universities that have negotiated these deals typically bundle subscription access and OA publishing rights into a single institutional payment, usually drawn from the indirect cost pool rather than itemised per article. If §200.454’s subscription restriction is read to include institutional library subscriptions, and §200.461’s APC restriction is read to include the OA-publishing component of transformative deals, the combined effect could touch both halves of a single contract — without either provision naming transformative agreements directly.
The US retreat looks unusual against comparable funder policy elsewhere. UKRI and Horizon Europe’s cOAlition S signatories already fund publication costs directly through block grants or eligible-cost provisions, because their zero-embargo mandates presuppose a funding route. For a collaboration with a US subrecipient and non-US lead institution, that divergence determines which partner’s budget can legally absorb the APC.
| Funder / jurisdiction | Zero-embargo OA requirement | Publication cost funding stance |
|---|---|---|
| US federal agencies (NIH, NSF, DOE, USDA) under the Nelson Memo | Yes — immediate deposit, no embargo | Proposed 2 CFR 200.461 would make APCs presumptively unallowable absent pre-approval |
| UKRI (UK) | Yes — immediate OA required for most outputs | Block grants and in-scope grant costs explicitly fund APCs |
| Horizon Europe / cOAlition S signatories | Yes — Plan S zero-embargo principle | APCs treated as eligible project costs where OA is mandated |
Offices administering joint US–UK or US–EU awards should treat this as a live compliance risk: the same paper may need immediate deposit under one funder’s rules while its lead US institution can no longer legally pay the APC that made deposit unnecessary.
What should research offices negotiate before October 2026?
Institutions have a narrow window before the effective date:
- Budget publication costs explicitly. Awards dated after 1 October 2026 should carry a named, pre-approved publication line item rather than relying on discretionary reallocation later.
- Clarify transformative agreement language. Confirm with publishers, in writing, whether institutional payments are classified as subscription or publication costs, since §200.461 reaches the substance of a payment, not its label.
- Document green open access workflows. Since the federal purpose licence under 2 CFR 200.315(b) is unaffected, manuscript deposit to agency repositories remains the most audit-resistant compliance path.
- Submit substantive comments. Comments citing the Nelson Memo, NOT-OD-25-047 and PRPD-25-001 by name, documenting the operational conflict directly, carry more weight than generic objections.
- Map multi-funder awards. Offices running US–UK or US–EU collaborations should flag which funder’s rules govern publication costs before submission, not at closeout.
Answer-first: quick questions on publication costs
Who pays for publication fees?
Publication fees are typically paid by the author’s research funder, their institution, or the author directly. Under current US federal rules, grant funds routinely cover APCs; the proposed 2 CFR 200.461 revision would shift that burden onto institutions unless a project specifically budgets for it in advance.
How much does it cost to publish in open access?
Article processing charges vary widely by publisher and journal tier, from no charge at diamond open-access titles to several thousand dollars at flagship journals. The figure depends on venue, not funder — which is why offices need a pre-approved, venue-agnostic publication budget line rather than a fixed assumption.
Why are article processing charges so high?
Article processing charges reflect editorial, peer-review and production costs plus, at prestigious titles, a reputation premium. Because funders rather than competitive pricing pressure have historically absorbed these charges, journals have had limited incentive to reduce them.
Implications and outlook
The contradiction between a rule that bans paying for open access and a mandate that requires it will not resolve itself quietly. Litigation, a revised final rule, or an OMB clarification narrowing “case-by-case” to budget-level rather than publication-level approval are all plausible before 1 October 2026. What is not plausible is that either policy simply disappears: the Nelson Memo’s zero-embargo requirement is embedded in agency policy notices already in force, and the OMB rewrite proceeds under Congress’s grant of authority at 31 U.S.C. 503.
For research administration offices, the safest posture treats the coming months as a negotiation window, not a waiting period: secure pre-approved publication lines, harden green open-access workflows under the still-intact federal purpose licence, and map which funder’s cost rules govern each collaborative output. Institutions doing that work now will keep publishing compliantly under both regimes; those waiting for the contradiction to resolve will inherit the audit findings meanwhile.