Scopus CiteScore 2025 Explained: How It Is Calculated and How It Differs From the Impact Factor

Reviewed by the NeucitePress Editorial Board — PhD academics, peer-reviewed journal editors and medical communication specialists.

Last updated and fact-checked: October 2026 • Every figure below is taken from the named primary source on the date shown • Reading time: 7 minutes

The formula, with a worked example

CiteScore measures the average citations received per peer-reviewed document over a four-year window. Elsevier’s definition: citations are “counted cumulatively” over the window, and the denominator is the number of peer-reviewed documents published in the same window (Scopus Blog, 9 June 2025; Elsevier Connect, “What is CiteScore”, 2021).

Because both sides use the same four years, a journal’s score is less sensitive to a single strong year than the two-year Impact Factor, and a new journal can receive a score after one year of publication: the window simply contains fewer years of documents.

What counts, and what does not

• Counted in both numerator and denominator: articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters and data papers.
• Not counted: editorials, letters, notes, errata and other non-peer-reviewed items. Articles in Press are excluded until they are assigned to an issue.
• Source of citations: all documents indexed in Scopus, including citations from the journal’s own articles (self-citation is not removed).

The practical effect for editors: a journal that publishes many editorials or letters does not dilute its own score, but it also cannot inflate the numerator with citations to items that are excluded from the denominator, which is a difference from the JIF discussed below.

Release calendar and the Tracker

The CiteScore Tracker shows the current year’s score as it builds, updated monthly, and is frozen into the annual value at the June release. It is the figure to watch for an early warning of a falling score, because the annual value cannot be changed once published.

CiteScore vs Journal Impact Factor

The denominator rule is the structural difference. Under the JIF, a citation to an editorial counts in the numerator but the editorial is not a citable item, so journals with many cited front-matter pieces gain. CiteScore counts the same document types on both sides, so that effect does not arise. Neither metric is wrong; they measure different things on different databases, and 13,131 journals have only one of them. Our guide to the Journal Impact Factor covers the Clarivate side.

CiteScore Percentile, SNIP and SJR

Three companion metrics appear beside CiteScore on scopus.com/sources:

• CiteScore Percentile: the journal’s rank within its subject category, calculated as [(L + 0.5 × S) / N] × 100 and rounded down, where L is the number of titles with a lower score, S those with the same score and N the category total. A journal in several categories has several percentiles.
• SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper): citations per paper weighted by the citation potential of the field.
• SJR (SCImago Journal Rank): a prestige-weighted measure in which citations from highly cited journals count for more.

Elsevier’s own guidance is that CiteScore should not be used to compare journals in different fields, and that SNIP or SJR are the field-normalised measures for that purpose.

How editors should use it

1. Report the percentile, not the raw score, when describing the journal to authors; a CiteScore of 2.0 is top quartile in some categories and bottom quartile in others.
2. Watch the Tracker monthly. A falling Tracker value a year before the annual release gives time to act: commissioning reviews, improving abstracts and titles, and tightening scope all affect citedness.
3. Check which document types your platform exports. If articles are typed as “editorial” or “note” in the Scopus feed, they drop out of the denominator and their citations out of the numerator.
4. Do not game self-citation. Scopus’s re-evaluation programme flags journals whose self-citation rate is far above category peers, and discontinuation removes the journal from the metric altogether; see why journals get de-indexed.
5. For a journal not yet in Scopus, the score does not exist until acceptance; see how to get a journal indexed in Scopus.

Frequently asked questions

How is CiteScore calculated?

CiteScore 2025 = citations received in 2022 to 2025 by peer-reviewed documents published in 2022 to 2025, divided by the number of those documents. Both the citations and the documents come from the same four-year window. Only articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters and data papers count, in both numerator and denominator.

When is CiteScore released?

Once a year in early June. CiteScore 2024 was released on 9 June 2025 and CiteScore 2025 on 4 June 2026. Between releases, the CiteScore Tracker is updated monthly and shows the value building for the current year.

How is CiteScore different from the Journal Impact Factor?

Four differences. Window: CiteScore uses four years of citations to four years of documents; the JIF uses one year of citations to the previous two years. Document types: CiteScore counts five peer-reviewed types in both numerator and denominator; the JIF counts citations to all items but divides only by articles and reviews. Database: Scopus versus the Web of Science Core Collection. Access: CiteScore is free on scopus.com/sources; the JIF requires a Journal Citation Reports subscription.

Can a new journal get a CiteScore?

Yes. Since the 2020 methodology revision, a journal can receive a CiteScore after a single year of publication. In CiteScore 2025, 1,594 titles received their first score.

Can CiteScore be used to compare journals in different fields?

Elsevier itself advises against it and recommends SNIP or SJR, which are field-normalised, for cross-field comparison. CiteScore Percentile ranks a journal within its own subject category and is the better within-field comparison.

What is CiteScore Percentile?

The journal’s position within its subject category: [(L + 0.5 × S) / N] × 100, where L is the number of titles with a lower CiteScore, S the number with the same score and N the number of titles in the category. It is rounded down and never reaches the 100th percentile.

Sources (primary, with access date)

• Elsevier. Introducing CiteScore 2025, June 2026 (32,089 titles; 1,594 first scores; 8,640 OA; 13,131 without JIF; 736 doubled; 701 top-10%).
• Scopus Blog. CiteScore 2024 release, 9 June 2025 (methodology; 31,138 titles).
• Elsevier Support. Scopus release notes 2026: CiteScore 2025 upgrade, 4 June 2026.
• Elsevier Connect. What is CiteScore, 3 June 2021 (2020 methodology: four-year window, document types, Articles in Press excluded, one-year eligibility).
• Elsevier Support. CiteScore FAQs (percentile formula; SNIP and SJR for cross-field comparison). Accessed 13 October 2026.
• Clarivate. Journal Citation Reports help (JIF definition and citable items). Accessed 13 October 2026.
• Clarivate. JCR 2026 release, 17 June 2026 (22,643 journals).