The Talmud, tractate Baba Metzia 86a, names Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi and Rabbi Natan as editors of the Mishnah. Rashi comments that after the editing of Mishnah only small additions entered. That is, after initial redaction of the Mishnah until the death of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi c. 220 CE, some additions and corrections still entered into the text. This is quite natural, since Mishnah itself was edited over a number of generations, and the generation of pupils of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi felt it appropriate to continue adding to the text. As time goes on, the more the text becomes fixed and sanctified, and less and less additions enter.

An example of later additions into Mishnah can be found in tractate Abodah Zara, Chapter 2 Mishnah 6:
àìå ãáøéí ùì òëå"í àñåøéï åàéï àéñåøï àéñåø äðàä:
çìá ùçìáå òëå"í åàéï éùøàì øåàäå, åäôú, åäùîï ùìäï.
øáé åáéú ãéðå äúéøå áùîï.

From the traditions brought in the Talmud, it is known that the permit to utilize oil made by non-Jews was not of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi himself, but of his grandson, Rabbi Yehudah Nesia. The note in Mishnah is therefore a later addition into the text, some two generations after its original editing, and the title “Rabbi” in the last line of the text refers to the latter Nasi, not to Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi his grandfather.

Interpretive questions in Mishnah may also constitute later additions. Such questions usually appear anonymously after one of the later layers in Mishnah to clarify a given point. Such questions can include terms like "àéæäå?" or "åìîä?" or "áîä ãáøéí àîåøéí?", and can be seen as footnotes to the statement in Mishnah itself.

One way to identify or verify later additions into Mishnah is by comparison of the text to parallel texts in Tosefta, to beraitot in the Talmud, or to amoraic discussions in Talmud. These parallel texts may quote the late addition in the name of a given student of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, or from an Amora of the generation immediately after.

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