We investigate gender differences in the time taken to accept empirical articles. On average, female-authored economics articles take notably longer to accept. Acceptance delay is nine weeks longer when solo-authored and five weeks longer for all female teams. This gender gap cannot be attributed to differences in author affiliation, research productivity, research quality and novelty. Female-authored articles are of higher quality, as measured by citations, reflecting higher research thresholds for female-authored work. The gender composition of editorial boards does not affect acceptance time for female authors. Nevertheless, this gender gap narrows as female representation in an area of research deepens.