It’s a situation almost every student has faced: you’ve spent hours refining your essay, you hit “resubmit” to see if your latest citations fixed that high similarity score, and suddenly—nothing. Instead of a percentage, you see a grey box that says “Pending.”
If you’ve reached your fourth submission attempt, that “Pending” status isn’t going away anytime soon. You’ve likely triggered the Turnitin 24-hour wait period.
In this guide, we’ll explain why this delay exists, the technical reasons behind it, and how it affects your Turnitin report.
What is the Turnitin 24-Hour Wait?
The Turnitin 24-hour wait is a built-in system policy that delays the generation of a student’s Similarity Report for any resubmission after the first three attempts.
While your first, second, and third submissions usually generate a report within minutes, the fourth attempt (and any thereafter) forces the system into a mandatory 24-hour processing window. During this time, the “Pending” status will remain until exactly 24 hours have passed from the moment of that specific upload.
The “Three-Submission” Rule
Turnitin allows for a “grace period” for the first three times you upload a document to a specific assignment link.
- Submissions 1–3: Reports are usually generated within 5–15 minutes.
- Submissions 4 and beyond: A mandatory 24-hour delay is applied.
Why Does Turnitin Enforce a Delay?
It might feel like a technical glitch, but the delay is a deliberate feature designed for two primary reasons: technical indexing and academic integrity.
1. Preventing “Self-Matching”
When you submit a paper, Turnitin indexes the text to compare it against its database. If you resubmit immediately, the system needs time to “flush” your previous draft from its temporary cache. Without a delay, the new version of your paper might match against your own previous version, leading to a 100% similarity score—which is unhelpful for both you and your instructor.
2. Discouraging “Trial-and-Error” Plagiarism
From a policy perspective, Turnitin is designed as an educational tool, not a “gaming” system. If reports were instantaneous for unlimited resubmissions, a student could theoretically change one word at a time until they “beat” the similarity percentage without actually improving the integrity of their writing. The 24-hour wait encourages students to review their work holistically rather than making minute, repetitive changes.
Common Misconceptions About the Delay
- “My teacher blocked me.” Unless your instructor has disabled resubmissions entirely, they usually haven’t manually triggered the 24-hour wait. It is an automated system-wide policy.
- “The system is broken.” If you see “Pending” after your 4th try, it is working exactly as intended.
- “Deleting and re-uploading will fix it.” Deleting a submission does not reset the counter. The system tracks the number of times you have uploaded a file to that specific assignment ID.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
No. In most institutional setups, even Turnitin administrators generally cannot bypass the 24-hour processing delay once it has been triggered. It is hard-coded into the system’s processing queue.
Not necessarily. Turnitin records the submission time the moment you upload the file. Even if the report takes 24 hours to “generate,” your official submission timestamp remains the time you hit the upload button. However, you won’t be able to see your similarity score during that window to make further changes.
You will not be able to see a new report before the deadline. Your instructor will see the similarity score of your latest submission once it finally generates, even if that happens after the deadline has passed.
The clock is tied to each individual resubmission. If you submit a 4th time at 2 PM on Monday, that report will be ready at 2 PM on Tuesday. If you submit a 5th time at 4 PM on Monday, that specific report will be ready at 4 PM on Tuesday.
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