NISO Publishes Revision of the Transfer Code of Practice (Version 5.0)
Baltimore, Maryland, March 31, 2026: The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) is pleased to announce the publication of the revised Transfer Code of Practice (Version 5.0), NISO RP-24-2026.
The Transfer Code of Practice is a NISO Recommended Practice that ensures continuing access to journals when titles are transferred from one publisher to another. Compliance with the code not only helps publishers make journal content easily accessible to librarians and readers when there is a transfer between parties, but also enables the transfer process to occur with minimum disruption to manuscript submission and production processes. This revision addresses community needs around the transfer of open access titles and refines language to provide more clarity to readers.
In addition to reviewing and revising the Transfer Code of Practice, the Transfer Standing Committee maintains the Transfer Alerting Service, which is hosted by the ISSN Centre and facilitates communication about journal title transfers. Over 90 publishers have endorsed the Transfer Code of Practice since it was first established as a NISO Recommended Practice in 2015.
“This has been a community effort with representatives from major publishers, societies, university presses, libraries, consortia, databases, serials resources, and consultants,” stated Sophia Anderton, Chief Executive, BJU International and co-chair of the Transfer Standing Committee. “We hope that the new version of the Code will support the whole of the research community so that there is a seamless service when journals transfer between publishers,” added Émilie LaVallée-Funston, Head of Research Support (OA), Library Services, University of Bristol and co-chair of the Transfer Standing Committee.
“The Transfer Code of Practice has become an indispensable tool in maintaining user access to content when it moves from one publisher to another,” said Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director. “We thank the members of the Transfer Standing Committee for their efforts to ensure it continues to meet the evolving needs of readers, authors, librarians, and publishers.”
The Transfer Code of Practice Version 5.0 is freely available on the NISO website: https://niso.org/standards-committees/transfer.
About NISO
Based in Baltimore, MD, NISO’s mission is to build knowledge, foster discussion, and advance authoritative standards development through collaboration among the cultural, scholarly, scientific, and professional communities. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages with libraries, publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization, management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting communities of interest and across the entire life cycle of information standards. NISO is a nonprofit association accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). For more information, visit the NISO website (https://niso.org) or contact us at nisohq@niso.org.