Free-to-publish Scopus journals by subject
The DOAJ lists 14,571 journals that charge no APC and no other author fees. 4,279 of them are also indexed in Scopus and therefore carry a SCImago ranking. Pick a subject area to see how many exist in your field, which are Q1 or Q2, and who publishes them. Data snapshot: October 2026.
| Subject area | No-APC journals | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 + Q4 | Share Q1/Q2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Social Sciences | 1,864 | 381 | 543 | 934 | 50% |
| Arts and Humanities | 1,215 | 285 | 386 | 542 | 55% |
| Medicine | 731 | 68 | 110 | 550 | 24% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 319 | 32 | 58 | 225 | 28% |
| Engineering | 312 | 70 | 69 | 170 | 45% |
| Computer Science | 225 | 55 | 49 | 117 | 46% |
| Environmental Science | 225 | 27 | 45 | 149 | 32% |
| Mathematics | 210 | 45 | 39 | 124 | 40% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 191 | 28 | 53 | 108 | 42% |
| Earth and Planetary Sciences | 186 | 32 | 27 | 124 | 32% |
| Economics, Econometrics and Finance | 169 | 22 | 49 | 96 | 42% |
| Psychology | 156 | 27 | 36 | 92 | 40% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 119 | 22 | 19 | 78 | 34% |
| Health Professions | 101 | 12 | 20 | 68 | 32% |
| Materials Science | 96 | 20 | 24 | 51 | 46% |
| Physics and Astronomy | 94 | 19 | 17 | 55 | 38% |
| Energy | 83 | 27 | 19 | 35 | 55% |
| Chemistry | 78 | 13 | 10 | 53 | 29% |
| Decision Sciences | 66 | 11 | 17 | 38 | 42% |
| Nursing | 63 | 9 | 10 | 43 | 30% |
| Chemical Engineering | 52 | 12 | 12 | 27 | 46% |
| Immunology and Microbiology | 49 | 6 | 7 | 35 | 27% |
| Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics | 45 | 9 | 13 | 23 | 49% |
| Dentistry | 42 | 5 | 14 | 23 | 45% |
| Multidisciplinary | 42 | 6 | 7 | 28 | 31% |
| Veterinary | 42 | 5 | 5 | 32 | 24% |
| Neuroscience | 37 | 5 | 9 | 23 | 38% |
A journal can belong to more than one area, so the column does not sum to the total. Quartile counts use the journal’s best quartile across its categories.
Diamond open access (also called Platinum) means the journal is free to read and free to publish in: the DOAJ records it with “APC: no” and “other fees: no”. Quartiles come from the latest SCImago edition: Q1 is the top 25% of journals in a subject category, Q4 the bottom 25%; the lists show a journal’s best quartile. Read more in our open access guide.