Error 429: Free Tier Quota Limit Reached Despite Tier 1 Account

Gemini API
,
1

I’m currently facing a 429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED error when using the Gemini API for flash 2.5 preview , even though our API key is associated with a Tier 1 account.

‘error’: {
‘code’: 429,
‘message’: ‘You exceeded your current quota, please check your plan and billing details. For more information on this error, head to: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/rate-limits.’,
‘status’: ‘RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED’,
‘details’: [
{
‘@type’: QuotaFailure’,
‘violations’: [
{
‘quotaMetric’: generate_content_free_tier_input_token_count’,
‘quotaId’: ‘GenerateContentInputTokensPerModelPerMinute-FreeTier’,
‘quotaDimensions’: {
‘location’: ‘global’,
‘model’: ‘gemini-2.5-flash’
},
‘quotaValue’: ‘250000’
}
]
}

It looks like the request is being limited by the Free Tier quota, specifically:
GenerateContentInputTokensPerModelPerMinute-FreeTier
This is confusing, as the API key should be under the Tier 1 plan and not subject to Free Tier restrictions.
Has anyone encountered a similar situation where a paid plan is still affected by Free Tier quotas? Could this be a configuration issue, or does it require contacting support to fully activate the upgraded quota?
Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

2

hello @Cosmic, welcome to the community,

I see you have mentioned your API key is associated with a Tier-1 account.
usually the billing tiers for the API keys are associated with the project

To eliminate any confusion, can you check and confirm that the key is linked to a project with cloud billing enabled?!