NeurIPS 2026 Article

What is the NeurIPS template?

NeurIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems) is the largest annual conference in machine learning. Every paper submitted has to use the official LaTeX style file neurips_2026.sty, which enforces the conference's exact layout: 9 content pages, single column, specific font sizes, no page numbers in the submission, and an automated checklist appended at the end.

The Sarmate template is the official NeurIPS 2026 author kit, pre-configured to compile in our editor without you having to manage the .sty file by hand — it's installed on our compile server. Just open the template and write.

When should you use this template?

• You're submitting to NeurIPS — main track, datasets & benchmarks track, or workshops. Most workshops use the same style file with minor option tweaks.
• You're posting to arXiv a paper that will eventually go to NeurIPS — start with the right format, save reformatting later.
• Your group's preprint server uses NeurIPS format as a quasi-standard for ML papers.

NeurIPS format is not the same as ICML or ICLR — they look similar but the column widths, line spacing and citation style are different. Don't reuse a NeurIPS source file for ICML without switching the style file.

Step-by-step: your first NeurIPS paper

1. Pick the right submission mode

The first preamble line is one of these:

\usepackage[submission]{neurips_2026}    % Anonymous submission (DEFAULT)
\usepackage[final]{neurips_2026}         % Camera-ready (after acceptance)
\usepackage[preprint]{neurips_2026}      % arXiv / preprint version

The submission option strips your author names, removes acknowledgments and adds page numbers for reviewers. The final option restores everything for the camera-ready. Don't switch to final until you're accepted — submitting non-anonymously is an automatic desk-reject.

2. Title and authors

\title{Your Paper Title}

\author{%
  David S.~Hippocampus\thanks{Use footnote for affiliations.} \\
  Department of Computer Science\\
  Cradle University\\
  Pittsburgh, PA 15213 \\
  \texttt{hippo@cs.cradle.edu} \\
}

For multiple authors at different institutions, use \And to separate them. The class handles the spacing automatically. Important: in submission mode, the authors block is replaced with "Anonymous Authors" automatically — don't try to do it yourself.

3. Abstract

\begin{abstract}
We propose a new method for ... Our experiments on ImageNet and
COCO show that our approach outperforms prior work by X\%.
\end{abstract}

NeurIPS doesn't enforce a hard word count, but anything over ~250 words is unusual. Reviewers spend ~30 seconds on the abstract — make it count: problem, contribution, key result with a number.

4. The 9-page limit (and the appendix)

The main paper is 9 content pages maximum for the 2026 edition (was 8 in earlier years — check the current Call for Papers). References, the impact statement, and the checklist do not count toward the limit. Anything else does.

If you have more material (extra experiments, proofs, additional figures), put it in an appendix after the bibliography:

\bibliography{your_bib_file}
\bibliographystyle{plain}

\appendix
\section{Additional experiments}
... your supplementary content ...

The appendix is unbounded in length but should be self-contained — reviewers are not required to read it, so don't put your main contribution there.

5. Citations: \citep vs \citet

NeurIPS uses author–year citations via natbib (loaded by the style file):

• \citep{vaswani2017attention} → "(Vaswani et al., 2017)" — for parenthetical citations
• \citet{vaswani2017attention} → "Vaswani et al. (2017)" — when the author is part of the sentence
• \citeauthor{vaswani2017attention} → "Vaswani et al." — author only, no year
• \citeyear{vaswani2017attention} → "2017" — year only

Use \citet when the author is the subject of your sentence ("Vaswani et al. (2017) introduced…"), \citep at the end of a claim ("Transformers excel at translation (Vaswani et al., 2017)").

6. Tables and figures

Standard LaTeX commands work, with one NeurIPS-specific touch: tables use the booktabs package (loaded by default) for clean horizontal rules. Don't use vertical lines (|) — they look amateur.

\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Test accuracy on CIFAR-10.}
\label{tab:results}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{lcc}
\toprule
Method      & Top-1 (\%) & Params (M) \\
\midrule
Baseline    & 92.3       & 11.2       \\
Ours        & \textbf{94.1} & 8.7    \\
\bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

7. The mandatory checklist

NeurIPS requires every paper to include a reproducibility checklist at the end of the main paper (before the bibliography or in the appendix). It asks yes/no questions about whether you released code, ran statistical tests, etc. The official author kit provides a checklist.tex file. Don't skip it — papers without a filled checklist are desk-rejected.

Common errors and how to fix them

! LaTeX Error: File `neurips_2026.sty' not found

The style file isn't on your TeX path. On Sarmate's compile server it's installed system-wide, so you should never see this here. If you're compiling locally, download the author kit from the official NeurIPS website and put neurips_2026.sty in the same folder as your .tex file.

Author names visible despite [submission] option

Check that you didn't accidentally put your name in the title (\title{X by Jane}), in the abstract, or in a watermark. The style file only anonymizes the \author block — anything else is your responsibility.

References overflow into the 10th page

References don't count toward the 9-page limit, so this is OK — you don't need to compress them. But if your paper body itself overflows past page 9, you have to cut content (no font tricks).

Hyphenation hides keywords / Greek letters render badly

Add \usepackage[T1]{fontenc} if not already there (the template includes it). For Greek letters in math mode use \alpha, \beta, etc. — never paste Unicode characters directly into a LaTeX file outside \text{}.

I get "checklist.tex not found" or similar at compile time

If you're using the full author kit and removed the checklist.tex file, also remove the \input{checklist} line in your main file. The Sarmate template ships without the checklist included by default — you can add it back when you're ready to fill it in.

Bibliography style looks wrong (numbered [1] instead of (Vaswani et al., 2017))

You used \bibliographystyle{ieee} or similar instead of the NeurIPS-compatible plain with natbib. The template uses \bibliographystyle{plain} + natbib — don't change it.

Style file options worth knowing

submission

Default. Anonymous, with line numbers and page numbers visible to reviewers.

final

Camera-ready. Authors visible, no line numbers. Switch to this only after acceptance.

preprint

Same as final but with a footer indicating "Preprint. Under review." — for arXiv versions.

nonatbib

Disables natbib if you want to use biblatex instead. Rare — most NeurIPS papers stick with natbib.

numericbib

Switches to numbered citations [1], [2] instead of author–year. Most reviewers expect author–year for NeurIPS — don't change without reason.

FAQ

How long should a NeurIPS paper be?

9 content pages for the 2026 main track. References + impact statement + checklist + appendix don't count. Most papers fill exactly 9 pages — anything shorter feels under-developed, anything bypassing the limit gets desk-rejected.

Should I use \cite, \citep or \citet?

Don't use bare \cite — it produces ugly inline citations. Use \citep for parenthetical (most common) and \citet when the author is the subject of your sentence. Both come from natbib, which the NeurIPS style file loads automatically.

Can I include videos or interactive figures?

The submitted PDF must be self-contained — no embedded videos. For supplementary material, NeurIPS provides a separate ZIP upload field on the submission portal. Reference your supplementary material from the paper text, but don't rely on reviewers opening it (most won't).

Can I have an "anonymized" GitHub link in the submission?

Yes, services like anonymous.4open.science let you share code anonymously during review. Many authors include such a link in the abstract or in a footnote. Don't link to your real GitHub — it's de-anonymizing.

What's the difference between NeurIPS and ICML / ICLR templates?

All three are single-column author–year ML conference styles, but they differ in margin sizes, line spacing, citation formatting, and page limits. You can't just rename a NeurIPS source to ICML — switch the style file, recheck the page limit, recheck the checklist (each conference has its own).

What's the "Broader Impact" / "Limitations" section about?

Since 2020, NeurIPS encourages authors to discuss societal impacts and limitations. As of 2026 it's a checklist item rather than a mandatory section — but reviewers will look for it. Half a page in the appendix or a paragraph at the end of the conclusion is enough.

Going further

• Official NeurIPS 2026 Call for Papers — page limits, submission deadlines, formatting rules. Re-read it once a month before deadline.
• NeurIPS Paper Checklist guide — what each checklist question really means.
• Open the template now. Try changing [submission] to [final] — see how the title block goes from "Anonymous Authors" to your real authors. Try the other options. That's the fastest way to learn.