429 "prepayment credits are depleted" despite funded Prepay balance

Project: gen-lang-client-03925164,(Default Gemini Project)

Billing account: 014FD4-1093CD-15F, (My Billing Account, Tier 1, Prepay)

Credit balance shown: $25.00, added Aug 30, 2026

Every generateContent call (tested via the @google/genai Node SDK and raw REST) returns 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED “Your prepayment credits are depleted”, except for one isolated successful call out of ~10 attempts over more than an hour. This matches other threads in this forum describing a billing-sync issue between Cloud Billing and the Gemini API prepay gate, not an actual lack of funds.

Requesting a manual billing sync for this project.

Hello @Victor_Lopez ,
Could you confirm whether the credits were added directly in Google AI Studio Pre-pay or in the Google Cloud Console? Gemini API prepayment credits must be funded directly within Google AI Studio at aistudio.google.com plan_information to be recognized. Please check where the balance appears so we can assist you with the right next steps.

Hi Mahesh,

Yes, confirmed — the credits were added directly in Google AI Studio Pre-pay (aistudio.google.com), not in Google Cloud Console billing. The $24.90 balance from the $25 purchase on Aug 30 shows up in the AI Studio UI itself, under the plan/billing info there.

Despite that, direct calls to the Gemini API (via gemini-cli and raw API calls) still return 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED: Your prepayment credits are depleted. I’ve already ruled out: wrong API key/project (only one exists on the account), payment method issues ($0.00 outstanding on both linked cards), billing account status (Active), and a stale project↔billing link (unlinked/relinked, no change).

This was also escalated separately via Google Cloud Billing Support live chat (agent Jericho) on Aug 31, who confirmed it’s beyond billing-support scope and passed it to engineering — still no resolution. Happy to provide the account/project IDs or a screen recording of the error again if useful here.

Thanks,
Victor