Impact Factor Calculator — Journal Impact Factor
Compute a journal's impact factor (IF) — the standard bibliometric measure of citation frequency — by entering the citation counts and article numbers for the two preceding publication years.
Average citations per citable article over the two prior publication years
- 1
Total citations
320 + 280 = 600 - 2
Total citable articles
90 + 85 = 175 - 3
Impact factor
600 ÷ 175 = 3.429Average citations per citable article published in the two prior years.
How does this calculator work?
Impact Factor = (citations to articles published in the past 2 years) / (number of those articles). A higher score means more citations per article on average, but meaningful comparisons require journals in the same subject area. Clarivate publishes official IFs annually in the Journal Citation Reports.
Formula
How this is calculated
The journal impact factor was introduced by Eugene Garfield in 1960 and is published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The formula divides the total number of citations received in the current calendar year for papers published in the previous two years, by the total number of citable articles published in those two years. Citable articles typically include research articles and reviews but exclude editorials, letters, and news items — a distinction that can inflate IFs for journals with many non-citable content.
For example, if a journal published 90 articles in Year-1 and 85 in Year-2, and those 175 articles received a combined 600 citations in Year-3, the IF = 600 / 175 ≈ 3.43. A higher IF suggests more citations per article on average, but it does not capture individual article quality, self-citation rates, or disciplinary norms — citation rates vary enormously between fields. Natural-science journals typically have far higher IFs than social-science or humanities journals, so cross-field comparisons are not meaningful.
Alternative metrics such as the h-index, CiteScore, and SCImago Journal Rank complement the IF by measuring different aspects of citation behaviour. The metric is widely used in hiring and promotion decisions but is also criticised for creating incentives to game citation counts.
Frequently asked questions
Garfield chose two years as a pragmatic balance: short enough to reflect recent relevance, long enough for papers to accumulate meaningful citations. Some journals also report a 5-year impact factor for fields where citation practices mature more slowly.
Not necessarily. IF varies hugely by discipline — a physics journal with IF 5 may be world-leading while the same score is modest in molecular biology. Always compare journals within the same subject category, not across fields.
Clarivate counts research articles and reviews as citable for the denominator. Letters, editorials, news items, and corrections are typically excluded from the denominator but their citations count in the numerator — a detail that can inflate some journals' IFs.
Also known as
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. (2026). Impact Factor Calculator — Journal Impact Factor [Online calculator]. TG we-Calculate. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/impact-factor-calculator
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team. "Impact Factor Calculator — Journal Impact Factor." TG we-Calculate. 2026. https://we-calculate.com/calculator/impact-factor-calculator.
TG we-Calculate Editorial Team, "Impact Factor Calculator — Journal Impact Factor," TG we-Calculate, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://we-calculate.com/calculator/impact-factor-calculator
@misc{wecalculate_impact_factor_calculator, title = {Impact Factor Calculator — Journal Impact Factor}, author = {{TG we-Calculate Editorial Team}}, howpublished = {\url{https://we-calculate.com/calculator/impact-factor-calculator}}, year = {2026}, note = {TG we-Calculate} }
Did this calculator help you?