The electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon are calculated at order q 4 in the relativistic formulation of baryon chiral perturbation theory. In order to obtain a consistent power counting for the renormalized diagrams we make use of the extended on-mass-shell renormalization scheme which we have discussed in a recent paper. We analyze the Dirac and Pauli form factors, F 1 and F 2 , as well as the electric and magnetic Sachs form factors, G E and G M . Our results are compared with those obtained in the heavy-baryon approach and in the (relativistic) infrared regularization. In addition, the Sachs form factors are compared with experimental data. We confirm previous findings that a one-loop calculation of the electromagnetic form factors does not generate sufficient curvature for the Sachs form factors G p E , G p M , and G n M . Moreover, the electric form factor of the neutron is very sensitive to higher-order contributions.