Project access restricted after disabling billing — request to confirm Free Tier eligibility

Gemini API
1

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Hello Gemini API team,

Could you review the Free Tier eligibility and access restriction for this project?

Project ID: craftbeerverse-gemini
Project number: 4683852545..
Model: gemini-3.1-flash-lite

We use the API to draft Japanese shop introductions from publicly available information in our CMS.

Previously, requests returned:
“Your prepayment credits are depleted.”

We disabled billing because we want to operate within the Free Tier. Since then, requests return:
“Your project has been denied access. Please contact support.”

AI Studio shows:

  • Project status: Restricted
  • Billing tier: Unavailable
  • “This project’s API access is restricted. Set up billing to continue.”

The existing API key is still listed. We found no suspension notice or appeal link on the Google Cloud dashboard.

Please clarify:

  1. What is the actual reason for this restriction?
  2. Can this project regain Free Tier access without enabling billing or purchasing credits?
  3. What verification or review steps are required?
  4. Is migrating this application to a new project without billing an appropriate recovery procedure for this account, or must the existing restriction be reviewed first?

We would like confirmation from the responsible team before changing projects or enabling billing.

Thank you.

2

Hello @Masaki ,

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:

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

  1. 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.

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

  3. Once age verification is configured, retry your request or create a new API key in Google AI Studio.

  4. 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.