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The theory for the analytic evaluation of energy gradients for coupled cluster (CC) wave functions is presented. In particular, explicit expressions for the analytic energy gradient of the CC singles and doubles (CCSD) wave function for a closed‐shell restricted Hartree–Fock reference determinant are presented and shown to scale as N⁶ where N is the one‐electron number of atomic basis functions for the molecular system. Thus analytic CCSD gradients are found to be of the same magnitude in computational cost as is the evaluation of analytic gradients for the configuration interaction singles and doubles (CISD) wave function. Applications of this method are presented for the water molecule and the formaldehyde molecule using a double‐ζ plus polarization (DZ+P) basis set. The CCSD equilibrium geometries, dipole moments, and, via finite differences of gradients, CCSD harmonic vibrational frequencies and …