ICLR 2026 Author Guide

ICLR 2026 Author Guide Similar to previous years, for ICLR 2026 we are asking authors to submit paper abstracts by the earlier abstract submission deadline of September 19 2025, anywhere on earth (AOE) . The full paper submission deadline is September 24, 2025 AOE . Abstracts and papers must be submitted using the conference submission system at: https://openreview.net/group?id=ICLR.cc/2026/Conference . Please keep in mind that the deadlines are final and we cannot make any accommodations for missing the abstract deadline or paper deadline. It is key that authors submit genuine and informative abstracts that reflect the content of the full submission, as abstracts will be used in reviewer bidding before the final paper submission deadline. Placeholder or duplicate abstracts will be removed. However, titles and abstracts may be edited before the submission deadline. Author order may be edited after the abstract deadline, but new authors cannot be added. No changes to authors are permitted after the submission deadline. No changes to title are permitted after the submission deadline until the end of the discussion period. Submission instructions Deadlines Authors must submit paper abstracts by the abstract submission deadline of Sept 19, 2025 AOE . Please note that no authors can be added after the abstract submission deadline (author order can be changed after the abstract submission deadline up to the full paper deadline). Also, please make sure that all authors have an OpenReview profile with the latest information .  Abstracts submitted by the abstract submission deadline must be genuine; placeholder or duplicate abstracts will be removed. The full paper submission deadline is Sept 24, 2025 11:59pm AOE . Abstracts and papers must be submitted using the conference submission system at: https://openreview.net/group?id=ICLR.cc/2026/Conference . The submission site will be open on September 13, 2025.  Supplementary material is due at the same time as the main paper. Double-blind submission and Anonymity ICLR 2026 is double blind, which means that all submitted papers should be anonymous. Any paper where author identity is revealed in either the main text or the supplementary material will be desk rejected. Note that related arxiv papers by the same authors do not break anonymity; if cited, these should be cited in third person. Paper length At the time of submission, the main text should be 9 pages or fewer . During the discussion/rebuttal phase and for the camera ready, the page limit will be increased to 10 pages to allow for new results/discussions. This limit will be strictly enforced. Papers with main text beyond the page limit will be desk-rejected. The list of references does not count towards the page limit, and unlimited additional pages are allowed for the bibliography/references. Authors may use as many pages of appendices (after the bibliography) as they wish, but reviewers are not required to read the appendix. Style files and Templates : To prepare your submission to ICLR 2026, please use the LaTeX style files provided at: https://github.com/ICLR/Master-Template/raw/master/iclr2026.zip Supplementary Materials Supplementary (text) submission: We encourage authors to submit a single file (paper + supplementary text). Supplementary text should appear after the references. Please mark the supplementary material clearly (e.g. as an appendix). Supplementary code and other supplementary materials: Source code associated with a paper can be uploaded as part of the supplementary material. Code submission gives more information to reviewers, especially for replicability of the paper. We encourage all authors to submit code as part of their submission. Note that reviewers are encouraged, but not required to review supplementary material during the review process. Recommended: Ethics statement All ICLR participants, including authors, are required to adhere to the ICLR Code of Ethics ( https://iclr.cc/public/CodeOfEthics ). All authors of submitted papers are required to read the Code of Ethics, adhere to it, and explicitly acknowledge this during the submission process. The Code of Ethics applies to all conference participation, including paper submission, reviewing, and paper discussion. As part of the review process, reviewers will be encouraged to raise potential violations of the ICLR Code of Ethics. If authors feel that their paper submission raises questions regarding the Code of Ethics, they are encouraged to include a paragraph of Ethics Statement (at the end of the main text before references) to address potential concerns where appropriate. Topics include, but are not limited to, studies that involve human subjects, practices to data set releases, potentially harmful insights, methodologies and applications, potential conflicts of interest and sponsorship, discrimination/bias/fairness concerns, privacy and security issues, legal compliance, and research integrity issues (e.g., IRB, documentation, research ethics). The optional ethics statement will not count toward the page limit, but should not be more than 1 page. Recommended: Reproducibility statement It is important that the work published in ICLR is reproducible. Authors are strongly encouraged to include a paragraph-long Reproducibility Statement at the end of the main text (before references) to discuss the efforts that have been made to ensure reproducibility. This paragraph should not itself describe details needed for reproducing the results, but rather reference the parts of the main paper, appendix, and supplemental materials that will help with reproducibility. For example, for novel models or algorithms, a link to an anonymous downloadable source code can be submitted as supplementary materials; for theoretical results, clear explanations of any assumptions and a complete proof of the claims can be included in the appendix; for any datasets used in the experiments, a complete description of the data processing steps can be provided in the supplementary materials. Each of the above are examples of things that can be referenced in the reproducibility statement. This optional reproducibility statement is not part of the main text and therefore will not count toward the page limit. Policies Reciprocal Reviewing Requirement Following ICLR 2025, there is a requirement for authors to serve as reviewers based on the number of papers they submit. All authors who are on 3 or more papers must serve as a reviewer for at least 6 papers. Authors in this category that fail to finish reviews by rebuttal stage may have their paper submissions desk rejected. Authors are exempt from the reviewing requirement if they are serving as an AC, SAC, or another organizing chair for ICLR 2026. In addition, all submissions must have at least one author who is registered to review at least 3 papers. The registered reviewer should be qualified to review, and they are qualified if they have at least one accepted publication at a previous ICLR/NeurIPS/ICML conference or equivalent journal. If none of the authors are qualified under this definition, then they are exempt from this requirement: we encourage submissions from researchers new to ICLR. All authors will be notified to register as reviewers after the abstract deadline. If none of the authors are registered as a reviewer, it will result in desk rejection for the paper. The program chairs may grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis. Dual Submission Policy Submissions that are identical (or substantially similar) to versions that have been previously published, or accepted for publication, or that have been submitted in parallel to this or other conferences or journals, are not allowed and violate our dual submission policy. However, papers that cite previous related work by the authors and papers that have appeared on non-peer reviewed websites (like arXiv) or that have been presented at workshops (i.e., venues that do not have publication proceedings) do not violate the policy. The policy is enforced during the whole reviewing process period. Submission of the paper to archival repositories such as arXiv is allowed during the review period. To allow citation of papers that are under review at ICLR2026, OpenReview provides BibTeX entries that do not list the authors, but does give the title, year and url. Author names are revealed at the end of the review period. The Use of Large Language Models (LLMs) The use of LLMs is allowed as a general-purpose assist tool. However, new this year, if LLMs played a significant role in research ideation and/or writing to the extent that they could be regarded as a contributor, then authors should describe the precise role of the LLM in a separate section on LLM usage. This section can appear in the appendix, and will not be considered as part of the page limit. Not disclosing significant LLM usage can lead to desk rejection of the paper. Irrespective of the ways that LLMs were used in a given submission, authors should understand that they take full responsibility for the contents written under their name, including content generated by LLMs that could be construed as plagiarism or scientific misconduct (e.g., fabrication of facts).  LLMs are not eligible for authorship. Withdrawal Policy Authors have the right to withdraw papers from consideration at any time until an accept or reject decision has been announced. Before the paper submission deadline, if an author withdraws the paper it will be deleted from the OpenReview hosting site. However, note that after the paper submission deadline, if an author chooses to withdraw a submission, it will remain hosted by OpenReview in a publicly visible "withdrawn papers" section. Like on arXiv, submissions to ICLR cannot be deleted or modified. Withdrawn papers will be de-anonymized immediately. Papers submitted are considered archival for scientific purposes, and cannot be deleted. Code of Conduct All ICLR participants, including authors, are required to adhere to the ICLR code of conduct ( https://iclr.cc/public/CodeOfConduct ). More detailed guidance for authors, reviewers, and all other participants will be made available in due course, and participation will require acknowledging and adhering to the provided guidelines. Code of Ethics All ICLR participants, including authors, are required to adhere to the ICLR Code of Ethics ( https://iclr.cc/public/CodeOfEthics ). All authors of submitted papers are required to read the Code of Ethics, adhere to it, and explicitly acknowledge this during the submission process. The Code of Ethics applies to all conference participation, including paper submission, reviewing, and paper discussion. Reviewing Process Double blind reviewing : Submissions will be double blind: reviewers cannot see author names when conducting reviews, and authors cannot see reviewer names.  Having papers on arxiv is allowed per the dual submission policy outlined above. Reviewing timeline: Sept 24 : Deadline for paper submissions. Submissions to ICLR are uploaded on OpenReview. Submissions can be edited on open review till the submission deadline (Sept 24) following which edits are not allowed till the release of the reviews. Nov 11 : Reviews released . Official reviews will be posted by Nov 11, also on OpenReview. Official reviews are anonymous and publicly visible in OpenReview. Nov 11 – December 3 : Public discussion period. Once reviews have been posted, authors can post responses to the reviews as comments on OpenReview Authors can also revise their paper until the end of the public discussion period (Dec 3). If such a revision is made, a pdfdiff will be applied to compare new changes to the paper against the original submission. Area chairs and reviewers reserve the right to ignore changes that are significantly different from the original paper. In addition, during this period, any submission that is cited will be given an anonymous BibTex entry. OpenReview will allow for public discussion any time during the discussion phase. Anybody who is logged in can post comments that are publicly visible, or restrict visibility to reviewers and up, ACs and up, or just PCs. All comments apart from those of the authors, reviewers, ACs or the organizing committee will be required to be non-anonymous. December 3 – Jan 22 : Private discussion among the reviewers and ACs . After the end of the public discussion there will be an internal discussion period amongst reviewers and ACs with the aim of summarizing the review process, after which acceptance decisions are made. Jan 22 : Decision notification . Acceptance decisions will be made and authors notified on Jan 22. Papers that are not accepted will be considered non-archival, and may be submitted elsewhere (modified or not), although the OpenReview site will maintain the reviews, the comments, and links to the versions submitted to ICLR. All submitted papers (accepted, rejected or withdrawn) will be deanonymized after the notification. The submissions and reviews will be released to the public. Note: Authors who encounter potential violations of the Code of Ethics, e.g., as part of the review or public discussion, should raise these issues in a private message to their papers' Area Chair through the open review interface. Camera-ready Submissions An email with instructions for uploading camera-ready submissions will go out mid-February 2026. page limit is identical with the submission version (10 pages) Similarly, ethics statements and acknowledgement etc. do not count for page limit. Frequently Asked Questions FAQ Re:submission Q. I have more than 3 submissions to ICLR 2026, and per policy I was invited to be a reviewer. However the invite expired. Are my papers at risk of being desk rejected? No. Due to the tight reviewing timeline, we had to freeze the author and reviewer lists. Thanks for your eagerness to review, and we hope you will be available to review for future iterations. Your papers are not at risk of being desk rejected. Q. I could not upload the paper by the deadline because of . Can I upload now? No. Unfortunately, no edits to the submission can be made after the submission deadline, no matter how small. We cannot make individual edits. Please do not email us for this. Q. I uploaded the wrong version and now the submission deadline has passed. Can you please update the paper / allow us to upload a new version? No. Unfortunately, no edits to the paper can be made after the submission deadline, no matter how small. We cannot make individual edits. Please do not email us for this. Q. I added my name as a reciprocal reviewer. But I have not received any notification yet about being a reviewer. Is my paper going to be desk rejected? No. We have only added a subset of the reciprocal reviewers based on a variety of the criteria. Please check your openreview to see if you have been added as a reviewer.  Even if you haven't, your paper is not in danger of desk