Desk Rejection Rates by Journal: What the Data Shows (2026)
Desk rejection rates range from 15% at PLOS ONE to 90% at NEJM. Here is the data for 30+ major journals, what the numbers mean for your submission, and how to reduce your desk rejection risk.
Associate Professor, Clinical Medicine & Public Health
Author context
Specializes in clinical and epidemiological research publishing, with direct experience preparing manuscripts for NEJM, JAMA, BMJ, and The Lancet.
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Quick answer: Between 30% and 70% of all manuscripts submitted to academic journals are desk rejected without ever reaching peer review. At the most selective journals, the rate exceeds 90%. These numbers are not meant to be discouraging. They are meant to help you calibrate your expectations and preparation. A paper submitted to NEJM without thorough preparation has a 90% chance of being returned within 2 weeks. That same preparation time, invested before submission, can change the outcome.
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.
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 | ~50% | ~15% | ~30 days |
Nature Chemical Biology | ~50% | ~15% | 30 to 45 days |
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 | 30 to 40% | ~57% | ~120 days |
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
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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 1-2 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 verified citations from 500M+ live papers, figure-level feedback, and a prioritized revision checklist. Every citation is verified 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) | $29 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 | ~50% | ~50% | ~30% | ~15% |
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
Between 30% and 70% of all manuscripts submitted to academic journals are desk rejected. At the most selective journals like NEJM, the rate exceeds 90%. At broad sound-science journals like PLOS ONE, it can be as low as 15%.
The most selective journals have the highest desk rejection rates, including NEJM (approximately 90%), Nature and Cell (70-80%), Lancet Oncology (70-80%), and Journal of Clinical Oncology (85%).
Broad sound-science journals and open-access venues tend to have lower desk rejection rates, including PLOS ONE (approximately 15%), Scientific Reports (40-45%), and IEEE Access (30-40%).
Desk rejection typically happens within 1-3 weeks of submission. Some journals like Immunity communicate decisions within 3-5 days, while others may take 4-6 weeks for initial decisions.
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