Gemini API returns 403: “Your project has been denied access” despite valid Auth key

Gemini API
1

Hello Gemini API Team,

I am requesting a manual review of my Gemini API project access.

My project “TraceRAG” consistently receives:

HTTP 403 PERMISSION_DENIED

“Your project has been denied access. Please contact support.”

Project name: TraceRAG
Billing tier: Free tier

I created a new authorization API key through Google AI Studio.

I have verified that:

  • The API key is an authorization key.
  • The key is associated with the TraceRAG project.
  • The project appears normally in Google AI Studio.
  • Listing Gemini models succeeds successfully.
  • Direct content generation requests consistently return HTTP 403.
  • The same issue occurs when testing directly with the official Google GenAI Python SDK, outside my application.
  • The AI Studio interface itself works normally.

The API usage dashboard also records the failed request as a 403 Forbidden error.

This is for a personal university software engineering project called TraceRAG, an evidence-first RAG system for document research and question answering.

I would like to remain on the Free Tier if eligible.

Could you please manually review the Gemini API access for this project/account and let me know why content generation is being denied?

I have not included my API key or any private credentials.

Thank you.

2

Hello @gladies_Priyanka ,

Getting a 403 API error response and / or seeing “Unavailable” next to your project in AI audio indicates a flag has been placed on your account. To proceed:

  1. If you’re on the free tier with no billing attached, please try the below steps:

  2. Check Model Availability & Rate Limits:

    • Ensure that the model you are requesting is available on your current plan. For example, not all models are available on the free tier. You can verify model availability, quotas, and limits on the AI Studio Rate Limit dashboard.

  3. Ensure you have completed age verification by navigating to Google Account Age Verification and verifying date of birth in Google Account Personal Info.

  4. Complete Phone Verification and turn on 2-Step Verification (2SV) on the Google Account associated with your project.

  5. Once age, phone and 2sv are configured, retry your request or create a new API key in Google AI Studio.

  6. If completing these steps still does not restore access (or if using a model requiring a paid tier), you might want to consider adding prepayment credits directly in Google AI Studio and/ or attaching a Google Cloud Billing account in the Google Cloud Console. Please note this will mean you lose your free tier quota.

3

Hello Google Gemini API Team,
I am getting HTTP 403: “Your project has been denied access. Please contact support.”
I created a new Gemini API project and a service-account-bound API key, but content generation is still denied.
My intended use is my personal GoonjTutor educational application.
Please review my Gemini API project access and let me know how I can restore access.
I have not included my API key or other private credentials.