Request for Manual Review — 403 PERMISSION_DENIED "Your project has been denied access" on generateContent

Gemini API
1

Hi, requesting a manual review for my project(s).

Symptom:

  • ListModels (GET /v1beta/models) succeeds (200 OK) and returns the full model list including generateContent-capable models.
  • Every generateContent call fails with:
    403 PERMISSION_DENIED
    “Your project has been denied access. Please contact support.”
  • This happens across multiple models (gemini-3.6-flash, gemini-flash-latest, gemini-2.5-flash-lite, and even non-Gemini open models like gemma-4-26b-a4b-it).

Isolation steps taken:

  • Confirmed the issue is not model-specific (reproduced across several models).
  • Created a brand-new API key under a brand-new Google Cloud project (different Google account entirely) and reproduced the exact same 403 error.
  • This rules out a single-project or single-account misconfiguration on my end.

This looks like the same known issue reported in several other threads on this forum, e.g.:

Could someone from the team take a look? Happy to provide the project number / API key prefix via DM if needed. Thank you!

2

Hello @komaigosan05 ,

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.

  7. If you are on a paid tier:

    1. Check for banners / error callouts in the AI Studio Projects page & the Billing page. Mostly these flags cause visible banners or other errors on these pages with concrete next steps / appeal links. You can also check the email address associated with your project for information on next steps.

    2. If your GCP project/ billing account is suspended, you must submit an appeal directly through the Google Cloud Console following the Project Suspension Guidelines (Help Center)

3

Thank you for the detailed troubleshooting steps.

I’ve completed all of them:

  • Age verification: confirmed in Google Account personal info
  • Phone verification: confirmed
  • 2-Step Verification (2SV): turned on

I then created a brand new API key under a brand new project via “Create API key in new project” in AI Studio. The generateContent call still fails with the exact same error:

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

This is a free-tier project with no billing attached, and I’m not currently using a model that requires a paid tier (tested with gemini-3.6-flash, which ListModels confirms is generateContent-capable).

Since the self-service steps didn’t resolve it, could this be escalated for a manual review? Happy to provide the new project number if that helps. Thank you for your help so far.