Desk Rejection Rate by Journal: 2026 Estimates and How to Use Them
Desk rejection rate estimates by journal, with source caveats, Scientific Reports context, and a practical targeting framework before submission.
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Quick answer: A desk rejection rate by journal is usually an estimate, not an official metric. For Scientific Reports, the current official journal page publishes scope and citation metrics, but not an official desk-rejection rate; use a lower-risk planning range than Nature Portfolio flagships, then check scope, ethics, methods, data availability, and reporting completeness before upload. For selective journals, the useful question is not "what is the exact rate?" but "what would make this editor stop at the abstract, first figure, or cover letter?"
manuscript readiness check. The Manusights readiness scan evaluates your manuscript against your target journal's specific editorial standards.
Desk-rejection-rate tables are useful only if you turn them into a targeting decision. A 70% to 90% editorial-triage rate means you should submit only when the paper clearly matches the journal's audience, significance bar, and reporting standards. A 15% to 30% rate usually means soundness and completeness matter more than trying to manufacture a prestige narrative.
Evidence basis and source boundary
This page separates official journal facts from desk-rejection estimates. Official sources can confirm scope, published metrics, APCs, author instructions, and some speed signals. They often do not publish a current desk-rejection percentage.
For example, the current Scientific Reports page says the journal covers natural sciences, psychology, medicine, and engineering; lists a 2025 Journal Impact Factor of 4.9; and reports more than 536 million downloads in 2025. It does not list an official desk-rejection rate. Manusights interpretation adds the author decision layer: whether the manuscript is more likely to fail at scope, methods, reporting, ethics, or significance framing.
In our analysis of desk-rejection-risk reviews, the specific failure pattern is not "the journal is too selective." It is that the manuscript gives the editor a quick reason to stop: the abstract promises more than the figures show, the scope reads like a different journal, or the reporting package is incomplete before review starts.
We see three repeat patterns in Manusights review data:
- Scientific Reports scope confusion: authors treat Scientific Reports as "easier Nature" instead of a soundness-led multidisciplinary journal. The safer test is whether the methods, ethics, data availability, and reporting package are complete enough for review.
- Selective-journal pitch mismatch: authors target Nature, Science, NEJM, JAMA, Cell, or Lancet with a cover letter that summarizes the study but does not explain why the result changes the journal's field-wide conversation.
- Fallback-plan delay: authors wait for the desk rejection before choosing the next journal. For high-filter targets, the fallback should be named before upload so the abstract and cover letter can be retargeted quickly.
Top general science journals
Journal | Desk rejection rate | Overall acceptance | First decision |
|---|---|---|---|
Nature | ~60% | ~8% | 5 to 7 days (desk) |
Science | ~85% | ~7% | 3 to 7 days (desk) |
Cell | 70 to 80%+ | ~8% | 5 to 10 days (desk) |
Top medical journals
Journal | Desk rejection rate | Overall acceptance | First decision |
|---|---|---|---|
NEJM | ~90% | <5% | ~21 days |
The Lancet | ~80% | 4 to 5% | 21 to 28 days |
JAMA | ~85% | 5 to 7% | ~14 days |
BMJ | ~70% | ~5% | ~17 days |
Nature Medicine | 70 to 80% | <8% | 30 to 45 days |
Circulation | 60 to 70% | ~7% | ~17 days |
Nature portfolio journals
Journal | Desk rejection rate | Overall acceptance | First decision |
|---|---|---|---|
Nature Communications | ~75% | ~8% | ~30 days |
Nature Chemical Biology | Not publicly disclosed | Not publicly disclosed | 11 days to first editorial decision |
Nature Neuroscience | 70 to 80% | ~10% | 2 to 4 weeks |
Nature Biotechnology | ~70% | ~10% | 2 to 4 weeks |
Nature Genetics | ~70% | ~10% | 2 to 4 weeks |
Nature Methods | ~60% | ~15% | 2 to 4 weeks |
Chemistry journals
Journal | Desk rejection rate | Overall acceptance | First decision |
|---|---|---|---|
JACS | 40 to 50% | ~25% | 4 to 8 weeks |
Angewandte Chemie | Moderate (fast decisions) | ~20% | 3 to 7 days |
ACS Nano | 40 to 50% | ~20% | 4 to 8 weeks |
Advanced Materials | High | ~15% | 4 to 8 weeks |
Broad open-access journals
Journal | Desk rejection rate | Overall acceptance | First decision |
|---|---|---|---|
PLOS ONE | 15 to 20% | ~31% | 35 to 45 days |
Scientific Reports | Lower than Nature Portfolio flagships; no official current rate published | Official page lists scope and metrics, not a desk-rejection percentage | |
eLife | 80 to 85% (editorial screen) | ~15% | 2 to 4 weeks |
Other notable journals
Journal | Desk rejection rate | Overall acceptance | First decision |
|---|---|---|---|
PNAS | ~50% | ~15% | ~30 days |
Science Advances | ~40% | 23 to 27% | 30 to 50 days |
PLOS Medicine | ~50% | ~15% | 6 to 8 weeks |
Physical Review Letters | ~35% | ~25% | 4 to 8 weeks |
Physical Review B | ~10 to 15% | ~35% | ~60 days |
Higher desk rejection does not mean lower quality
NEJM's 90% desk rejection rate does not mean 90% of submitted papers are bad. It means NEJM receives far more good papers than it can publish. A desk rejection from NEJM is not a quality judgment. It is a selectivity judgment. The same paper might be accepted at BMJ, Lancet, or a specialty journal.
Desk rejection is usually about fit, not quality
The most common desk rejection reasons across journals are:
- Scope mismatch (the paper does not match what the journal publishes)
- Significance insufficient for the journal tier
- Methodology concerns visible from the abstract
- Overclaimed conclusions relative to study design
- Reporting incomplete (missing checklists, ethics, data availability)
Items 1 and 2 are about journal targeting. Items 3 through 5 are about manuscript quality. Both are checkable before submission.
The first 5 minutes determine the outcome
At most selective journals, the desk decision is made in the first read of the abstract and figures. Editors do not read the full methods section before deciding on triage. The abstract must communicate significance immediately. The first figure must show the key result. If the significance is not obvious in 5 minutes, the paper is rejected regardless of the quality of the underlying work.
What We've Learned from Analyzing Desk Rejections Across Journals
Having reviewed thousands of manuscripts through our manuscript readiness check, many targeting the journals listed on this page, we can add context that the numbers alone don't provide.
The single most consistent predictor of desk rejection across all journals: the abstract and cover letter are calibrated for a different journal's audience. A paper written for a specialty journal and submitted to a broad-science journal (Nature Communications, PNAS, Science Advances) without reframing the significance for a general audience gets desk-rejected.
A paper written for a general audience and submitted to a specialist journal (JCI, Water Research, ACS Nano) without deepening the technical detail gets desk-rejected. The science is the same in both cases. The framing determines the outcome.
The other pattern: authors who treat high desk-rejection rates as evidence that submitting is futile. At Nature Communications (75-92% desk rejection), the 8% who get accepted aren't submitting fundamentally different science. They're submitting better-framed science. The cover letter, abstract, and first figure do most of the editorial work. Investing an hour rewriting those three elements for each target journal is the highest-return pre-submission investment we can recommend.
For journals with cascading systems (Nature/Nature Communications, Cell/Cell Reports, Science/Science Advances), desk rejection at the flagship is often a routing signal, not a quality judgment. A paper desk-rejected from Science with feedback about "insufficient breadth" is being told it belongs at Science Advances. Taking that feedback literally and adjusting the framing saves months.
Know the numbers before you submit
If your target journal has a 60%+ desk rejection rate, your preparation needs to be thorough. If the rate is under 20%, a basic check is usually sufficient.
Desk-reject risk
Run the scan while these rejection patterns are in front of you.
See which patterns your manuscript has before an editor does.
Check readiness before submission
The manuscript readiness check evaluates your manuscript against your target journal's specific editorial standards in about two to three minutes. You get a readiness score, desk-reject risk signal, and the top issues with direct quotes from your paper. This catches the issues in categories 3 through 5 above (methodology, overclaiming, incomplete reporting).
For a full assessment, the manuscript readiness check provides citation-integrity checks against scholarly metadata sources, figure-level feedback, and a prioritized revision checklist. Citation risk is checked against CrossRef and PubMed. This catches problems that a manual check would take hours to identify.
Match the preparation to the stakes
Target journal desk rejection rate | Recommended preparation |
|---|---|
Under 20% (PLOS ONE, some specialty journals) | |
20 to 50% (PNAS, field flagships) | |
50 to 80% (Nature Communications, Lancet, Nature Medicine) | $39 diagnostic + colleague review |
80%+ (NEJM, Science, Cell) | manuscript readiness check + Expert Review for career-critical submissions |
How to use the rate table without fooling yourself
- treat the desk-rejection rate as a signal about editorial selectivity, not as a verdict on paper quality
- compare your manuscript to recent papers the journal actually sent to review, not to the brand alone
- use the rate to decide how much pre-submission checking you need before you upload
- assume that high-rate journals are filtering first for fit and consequence, not just for technical soundness
- check whether the first figure and abstract make the journal-tier case fast enough for an editor's first read
- move down one tier early if the paper still needs heavy explanation to justify why it belongs there
Think twice if the number is high and the paper still needs explanation
- the abstract does not yet make the journal-tier significance obvious in one read
- the best comparison paper in the target journal still feels clearly stronger than your submission
- your fallback journal list is undefined even though the desk-rejection rate is above 60%
- the paper would look more convincing after one round of claim calibration, reporting cleanup, or journal retargeting
Data limitations
These desk rejection rates are compiled from published sources, editorial commentary, and researcher reporting. Exact rates vary by year and are not always publicly reported by journals. The figures should be treated as approximate ranges rather than exact percentages. Where possible, we have linked to the source or the journal-specific page with more context.
Last verified: March 2026. Desk rejection rates are editorial estimates compiled from journal editorial reports, published studies (e.g., ECR Life), and SciRev aggregated reviewer data. Most journals don't officially publish desk rejection rates, so figures should be treated as approximate ranges.
What Desk Rejection Rates Actually Predict About Your Chances
Most tables stop at the desk rejection rate. That's only half the picture. What you actually need is the full funnel: how many papers survive the desk, and of those, how many survive peer review? When you multiply those two filters together, you get your real odds, and they're often different from what the headline numbers suggest.
Here's the math for eight journals where both rates are estimable from published data:
Journal | Desk rejection rate | Papers reaching review | Post-review acceptance rate | Overall acceptance rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Nature | ~60% | ~40% | ~38% | ~8% |
Science | ~85% | ~15% | ~47% | ~7% |
NEJM | ~90% | ~10% | ~50% | <5% |
Cell | ~75% | ~25% | ~32% | ~8% |
BMJ | ~70% | ~30% | ~17% | ~5% |
PLOS ONE | ~20% | ~80% | ~39% | ~31% |
Nature Communications | ~75% | ~25% | ~32% | ~8% |
PNAS | ~50% | ~50% | ~30% | ~15% |
The pattern worth noticing: at Nature, if your paper gets past the desk, you've got roughly a 1-in-3 shot at acceptance. That's dramatically better than the headline 8% suggests. At BMJ, the post-review acceptance rate is lower, meaning peer review is a harder filter there than at Nature. At PLOS ONE, the desk isn't much of a barrier (80% pass), but peer review still eliminates about 60% of what gets through.
This changes how you should think about preparation. A paper aimed at Nature needs to survive a 5-minute editorial read. A paper aimed at BMJ needs to survive a thorough peer review. Different preparation, different weak points.
How to Use This Table Strategically
The desk rejection table isn't just a confidence check, it's a targeting tool. Three principles make the data actionable:
First, clearing the desk roughly doubles your odds at most journals. At Nature, your odds go from 8% to about 38% once you're past the editor. At NEJM, from under 5% to about 50%. If you can honestly assess whether your paper will survive the desk read, you're working with a much more useful probability.
Second, journals where desk rejection is the main filter require different preparation than journals where peer review is the main filter. At Science (~85% desk rejection, ~47% post-review acceptance), nearly all the selection happens at the editor's desk. Your abstract, first figure, and significance framing need to be airtight. At BMJ (~70% desk rejection, ~17% post-review acceptance), peer review is the harder gate, your methods, reporting checklists, and data transparency matter more than the pitch.
Strategy question | High desk rejection filter (Nature, Science, NEJM) | High peer review filter (BMJ, PLOS ONE) |
|---|---|---|
Where to invest prep time | Abstract, first figure, cover letter | Methods, reporting checklist, data availability |
What triggers rejection | Scope mismatch, insufficient wow factor | Methodological gaps, incomplete reporting |
Best pre-submission check | manuscript readiness check for fit signal | manuscript readiness check for methods depth |
Third, the cascade strategy works best when desk rejection rates differ by 20+ points between tiers. If your first-choice journal has a 70%+ desk rejection rate and your fallback is at 40-50%, you're moving from a journal where most papers die at the desk to one where most papers reach reviewers. That's a real strategic shift, not just a prestige downgrade. Plan the cascade before you submit the first time, not after the rejection lands.
How to use this information
Use proactively if:
- You are preparing a submission to a selective journal
- You want to identify desk rejection risks before submitting
- Your paper has characteristics that commonly trigger desk rejection
Less relevant if:
- You are submitting to journals with low desk rejection rates (<20%)
- Your paper has already been accepted or is in revision
Frequently asked questions
Most public desk-rejection numbers are estimates, not official journal metrics. Across selective journals, planning ranges commonly fall between 30% and 70%, while the most selective journals can reject most submissions before external review.
Highly selective broad and medical journals usually have the highest editorial-triage filters. Treat exact percentages for NEJM, Nature, Science, Cell, Lancet, and JAMA as planning estimates unless the journal publishes a current figure.
Scientific Reports does not publish an official desk-rejection rate on its current journal page. Manusights treats Scientific Reports as a lower desk-rejection-risk journal than Nature Portfolio flagship titles, but scope, ethics, methods, and reporting gaps can still trigger early return.
Desk rejection often happens within 1-3 weeks, but journal-specific timing varies. Official journal speed pages are safer for planning than an unsourced desk-rejection percentage.
Sources
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