The US National Institutes of Health updated its Public Access Policy so that peer-reviewed manuscripts arising from NIH-supported research are made freely available in PubMed Central (PMC) immediately on the official date of publication, with no embargo period. The revised policy took effect in 2025 and replaced a long-standing arrangement under which deposited manuscripts could remain behind an access delay of up to twelve months. This article describes what changed and what it means in practice; it is a neutral explainer and not legal or compliance advice.
What the policy actually requires
Under the updated policy, authors of papers that result from NIH funding must ensure that the accepted, peer-reviewed manuscript is deposited in PubMed Central and made publicly accessible without an embargo. The central change is timing: where the earlier 2008-era policy allowed the freely available version to appear up to a year after publication, the version now in force removes that delay so the manuscript is available to readers at the point of publication.
The requirement attaches to the funding rather than to the journal. A paper that acknowledges NIH support, or that reports work conducted under an NIH award, falls within scope regardless of where it is published. The policy concerns the author-accepted manuscript — the peer-reviewed text after revisions but typically before the publisher’s final typeset formatting — which is what is deposited and surfaced through PMC.
Why NIH made the change
The update aligns NIH practice with the wider US federal direction on access to publicly funded research. Federal science-policy guidance has pushed agencies toward making the results of taxpayer-funded research freely and immediately available, and the removal of the optional embargo brings the largest US biomedical funder into line with that direction. For readers tracing the policy lineage, the broader federal context is set out in our explainer on the OSTP Nelson memo.
NIH has framed the change as advancing public access to the literature it funds and improving the speed at which findings reach clinicians, researchers and the public. The agency administers the deposit workflow through established systems rather than through any new submission portal, so the operational mechanics for authors are largely familiar.
What changes for authors and administrators
For investigators, the practical shift is that they can no longer rely on a publisher embargo to delay free availability. Manuscript deposit must be arranged so that the public version appears on publication. Many authors handle this through the journal’s deposit service where one exists, or by submitting the accepted manuscript themselves through the NIH Manuscript Submission system.
- Scope check: determine whether a paper acknowledges NIH funding — that is the trigger for the policy.
- Version control: identify the peer-reviewed accepted manuscript, which is the version deposited.
- Timing: ensure the deposit and public-release settings reflect immediate availability rather than a delayed release.
- Identifiers: a PMC identifier (PMCID) continues to be used to demonstrate compliance, including in progress reports and future applications.
Research administrators frequently track compliance because a PMCID is referenced when citing prior NIH-funded work in applications and reports. Removing the embargo does not change that reporting relationship; it changes the moment at which the deposited version becomes publicly readable.
How it interacts with publishing choices
The policy does not require authors to publish in any particular journal or to pay an article-processing charge. Depositing the accepted manuscript in PubMed Central is a route to compliance that is independent of whether the journal itself is open access. Authors may still publish in subscription journals provided the accepted manuscript is made freely available through PMC on the publication date. For background on the underlying concept, see our plain-language note on open access in the standards dictionary.
Because the deposited version is the author-accepted manuscript rather than the publisher’s final formatted article, the freely available copy may differ cosmetically from the version of record. The scholarly content is the peer-reviewed text; pagination, branding and final typesetting may vary.
Rights and licensing considerations
A frequent question concerns the rights under which the deposited manuscript is made available. Depositing the accepted manuscript in PubMed Central is a matter of public accessibility — readers can find and read it — and authors continue to navigate publication agreements with their chosen journals. Some authors retain rights to deposit the accepted manuscript through the terms of their publishing agreement, while institutions and funders increasingly encourage authors to secure such rights up front. The policy’s focus is on free public availability through PMC; the precise licensing of any individual deposit depends on the agreement between author and publisher.
This distinction matters for reuse. Free to read is not always the same as free to reuse under an open licence. Authors who want their work to be reusable under a specific licence typically address that through their publication choices, while the funder requirement guarantees, at minimum, immediate free access for readers via PubMed Central.
What to watch next
Implementation detail continues to be clarified through NIH guidance, including how deposit workflows operate for different journal arrangements and how the policy is reflected in award terms. Institutions generally update internal guidance and library support services to reflect the no-embargo expectation. Many libraries offer author support to help investigators identify the correct manuscript version, complete deposits and obtain the PMCID that documents compliance. Readers seeking the authoritative text should consult NIH’s own published policy pages rather than secondary summaries, since operational specifics can be refined over time.
The headline is straightforward: NIH-funded peer-reviewed papers are now free to read in PubMed Central from the day they are published, without the previous waiting period. For the systems and terminology behind US research funding more broadly, our CRediT contributor-role overview and funding explainers provide neutral, definitional context.