mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Table-R1: Inference-Time Scaling for Table Reasoning

arXiv 2505.23621 ↗First posted 29 May 2025cs.CLcited by 23

On the map: LLM reasoning → Knowledge- and tool-augmented reasoning

Abstract (arXiv)

In this work, we present the first study to explore inference-time scaling on table reasoning tasks. We develop and evaluate two post-training strategies to enable inference-time scaling: distillation from frontier model reasoning traces and reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR). For distillation, we introduce a large-scale dataset of reasoning traces generated by DeepSeek-R1, which we use to fine-tune LLMs into the Table-R1-SFT model. For RLVR, we propose task-specific verifiable reward functions and apply the GRPO algorithm to obtain the Table-R1-Zero model. We evaluate our Table-R1-series models across diverse table reasoning tasks, including short-form QA, fact verification, and free-form QA. Notably, the Table-R1-Zero model matches or exceeds the performance of GPT-4.1 and DeepSeek-R1, while using only a 7B-parameter LLM. It also demonstrates strong generalization to out-of-domain datasets. Extensive ablation and qualitative analyses reveal the benefits of instruction tuning, model architecture choices, and cross-task generalization, as well as emergence of essential table reasoning skills during RL training.

Key facts. Cited by 23 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Knowledge- and tool-augmented reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 40 of its 75 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 May 2025.

Builds on

40 of 75 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Search-R1: Training LLMs to Reason and Leverage Search Engines with Reinforcement Learning12 Mar
  2. 2025Rank-R1: Enhancing Reasoning in LLM-based Document Rerankers via Reinforcement Learning8 Mar
  3. 2025Rank1: Test-Time Compute for Reranking in Information Retrieval25 Feb
  4. 2024TabSQLify: Enhancing Reasoning Capabilities of LLMs Through Table Decomposition15 Apr
  5. 2024Tables as Texts or Images: Evaluating the Table Reasoning Ability of LLMs and MLLMs19 Feb

Other references · 35

  1. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 13,958
  2. 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 8,851
  3. 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,146
  4. 2024GPT-4o System Cardcited by 4,467
  5. 2025DAPO: An Open-Source LLM Reinforcement Learning System at Scalecited by 2,678
  6. 2025s1: Simple test-time scalingcited by 1,311
  7. 2025Understanding R1-Zero-Like Training: A Critical Perspectivecited by 1,276
  8. 2024OpenAI o1 System Cardcited by 1,220
  9. 2025Kimi k1.5: Scaling Reinforcement Learning with LLMscited by 1,193
  10. 2025Does Reinforcement Learning Really Incentivize Reasoning Capacity in LLMs Beyond the Base Model?cited by 948
  11. 2025Vision-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 653
  12. 2025LIMO: Less is More for Reasoningcited by 488
23 more
  1. 2025Open-Reasoner-Zero: An Open Source Approach to Scaling Up Reinforcement Learning on the Base Modelcited by 450
  2. 2024LLaVA-CoT: Let Vision Language Models Reason Step-by-Stepcited by 446
  3. 2025ReTool: Reinforcement Learning for Strategic Tool Use in LLMscited by 377
  4. 2025RAGEN: Understanding Self-Evolution in LLM Agents via Multi-Turn Reinforcement Learningcited by 357
  5. 2025rStar-Math: Small LLMs Can Master Math Reasoning with Self-Evolved Deep Thinkingcited by 308
  6. 2023Alphazero-like Tree-Search can Guide Large Language Model Decoding and Trainingcited by 291
  7. 2025Logic-RL: Unleashing LLM Reasoning with Rule-Based Reinforcement Learningcited by 260
  8. 2025GUI-R1 : A Generalist R1-Style Vision-Language Action Model For GUI Agentscited by 240
  9. 2025Light-R1: Curriculum SFT, DPO and RL for Long COT from Scratch and Beyondcited by 175
  10. 2024Free Process Rewards without Process Labelscited by 162
  11. 2024Mutual Reasoning Makes Smaller LLMs Stronger Problem-Solverscited by 137
  12. 2023TableLlama: Towards Open Large Generalist Models for Tablescited by 136
  13. 2025MiMo: Unlocking the Reasoning Potential of Language Model -- From Pretraining to Posttrainingcited by 117
  14. 2024Mapping the Increasing Use of LLMs in Scientific Paperscited by 112
  15. 2024TableLLM: Enabling Tabular Data Manipulation by LLMs in Real Office Usage Scenarioscited by 76
  16. 2024TableGPT2: A Large Multimodal Model with Tabular Data Integrationcited by 69
  17. 2023TableGPT: Towards Unifying Tables, Nature Language and Commands into One GPTcited by 57
  18. 2025Table-Critic: A Multi-Agent Framework for Collaborative Criticism and Refinement in Table Reasoningcited by 32
  19. 2025Understanding and Benchmarking Artificial Intelligence: OpenAI's o3 Is Not AGIcited by 19
  20. 2016TabMCQ: A Dataset of General Knowledge Tables and Multiple-choice Questionscited by 18
  21. 2025MT-RewardTree: A Comprehensive Framework for Advancing LLM-Based Machine Translation via Reward Modelingcited by 9
  22. 2024ArxivDIGESTables: Synthesizing Scientific Literature into Tables using Language Modelscited by 8
  23. 2025What Really Matters for Table LLMs? A Meta-Evaluation of Model and Data Effectscited by 2

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 11; 2026: 12.

23 papers.

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  1. 2025Reasoning-Table: Exploring Reinforcement Learning for Table Reasoningcited by 18
  2. 2025StepFun-Formalizer: Unlocking the Autoformalization Potential of LLMs through Knowledge-Reasoning Fusioncited by 15
  3. 2025Mixture-of-Minds: Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Table Understandingcited by 6
  4. 2025TaTToo: Tool-Grounded Thinking PRM for Test-Time Scaling in Tabular Reasoningcited by 5
  5. 2025EHRStruct: A Comprehensive Benchmark Framework for Evaluating Large Language Models on Structured Electronic Health Record Taskscited by 5
  6. 2025TeleTables: A Benchmark for Large Language Models in Telecom Table Interpretationcited by 5
  7. 2025Table Question Answering in the Era of Large Language Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Tasks, Methods, and Evaluationcited by 4
  8. 2026Skill-Aware Data Selection and Fine-Tuning for Data-Efficient Reasoning Distillationcited by 4
  9. 2025TReB: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Evaluating Table Reasoning Capabilities of Large Language Modelscited by 3
  10. 2025STaR: Towards Effective and Stable Table Reasoning via Slow-Thinking Large Language Modelscited by 3
  11. 2026StrucTab: A Structured Optimization Framework for Table Parsingcited by 2
  12. 2025Schema-R1: A reasoning training approach for schema linking in Text-to-SQL Taskcited by 1
11 more
  1. 2026ReasonTabQA: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Table Question Answering from Real World Industrial Scenarioscited by 1
  2. 2026TableMind++: An Uncertainty-Aware Programmatic Agent for Tool-Augmented Table Reasoningcited by 1
  3. 2026When LLMs Read Tables Carelessly: Measuring and Reducing Data Referencing Errorscited by 1
  4. 2026FluxLite: Inference-Time Proposal Control for Discrete Diffusion Modelscited by 1
  5. 2025JT-DA: Enhancing Data Analysis with Tool-Integrated Table Reasoning Large Language Modelscited by 0
  6. 2026Reasoning by Commented Code for Table Question Answeringcited by 0
  7. 2026GLEAN: Grounded Lightweight Evaluation Anchors for Contamination-Aware Tabular Reasoningcited by 0
  8. 2026SciTaRC: A Plan-Annotated Scientific Tabular QA Benchmark for Language Reasoning and Complex Computationcited by 0
  9. 2026DataFactory: Collaborative Multi-Agent Framework for Advanced Table Question Answeringcited by 0
  10. 2026TableVista: Benchmarking Multimodal Table Reasoning under Visual and Structural Complexitycited by 0
  11. 2026Synthetic Contrastive Reasoning for Multi-Table Q&Acited by 0

Similar, not cited

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  1. 2025Rethinking Inference-Time Scaling: Efficiency Limits and Linguistic Signals
  2. 2025Table-R1: Region-based Reinforcement Learning for Table Understanding
  3. 2025T1: Advancing Language Model Reasoning through Reinforcement Learning and Inference Scaling
  4. 2025Inference-Time Computations for LLM Reasoning and Planning: A Benchmark and Insights
  5. 2025TableGPT-R1: Advancing Tabular Reasoning Through Reinforcement Learning
  6. 2025An Empirical Study on Eliciting and Improving R1-like Reasoning Models
  7. 2025Scaling Up RL: Unlocking Diverse Reasoning in LLMs via Prolonged Training
  8. 2025Can GRPO Boost Complex Multimodal Table Understanding?