Gemini API projected restricted - 403 permission denied

Hello Google Gemini API team,

I am a student developing a small hospital patient symptom-enquiry chatbot for an academic project.

My Gemini API requests are returning:

403 PERMISSION_DENIED

Google AI Studio shows:
“This project’s API access is restricted. Please set up billing to continue.”

I have already:

  • Verified my phone number
  • Enabled 2-Step Verification
  • Created a new Google AI Studio project
  • Created a new API key

The newly created project is also restricted.

I would like to continue using the Gemini API through the available free access, if eligible. Could you please review my account/project and let me know why the API access is restricted and whether it can be restored?

Thank you.