arXiv caps monthly submissions at two as AI floods its servers with 40,000 papers
ArXiv's Updated Rate Limit Policy
arXiv received a record 40,363 submissions in September 2026, more than double the volume from two years earlier, and the surge is being driven by AI-assisted writing. In response, the repository now limits every submitter to two submissions per calendar month and three active submissions at any time, a stopgap meant to spread volunteer moderator time more fairly while it develops better moderation tools.
A relatively small proportion of authors are submitting a large number of low-quality papers and consuming a disproportionate fraction of the moderators’ time.