Request for manual review — Gemini API 403 PERMISSION_DENIED / Project Restricted after reinstatement

Gemini API
1

Hello Google Gemini API Team,

I am requesting a manual review of Gemini API access for our Google Cloud project.

The project is used only for a low-volume internal business news automation workflow in Google Apps Script. It retrieves public news headlines, sends them to Gemini for short summaries/classification, and emails the results internally.

The Gemini API previously worked successfully with gemini-3.6-flash. The project was then restricted, and I later received a Google Cloud Trust & Safety email confirming that the project had been reinstated.

After reinstatement, the API worked again briefly, but it is now restricted once more.

Google AI Studio currently shows:

  • Project quota tier unavailable
  • This Project's API access is restricted. Please set up billing to continue.

generateContent now returns:

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

I have already confirmed:

  • Valid date of birth / age information
  • Phone number is configured
  • 2-Step Verification is enabled
  • I am the Owner of the Google Cloud project
  • No Gemini API restriction is visible in Organization Policies
  • The model (gemini-3.6-flash) previously returned HTTP 200 successfully
  • Usage is low and well below the published rate limits

We would like to remain on the eligible Free Tier and do not want to enable billing at this stage.

Could you please manually review whether the Free Tier entitlement or Gemini API access restriction on this account/project was applied in error, and restore access if possible?

I can provide the Project ID / Project Number and additional logs privately if needed.

Thank you.

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2

I also created a new API key under the same project and tested gemini-3.6-flash with a minimal request.
The new key returns the same error:
403 PERMISSION_DENIED – Your project has been denied access.
This appears to confirm the restriction is at the project/account level rather than the API key level.

3

Hi, I’m following up on this issue as the project is still restricted.

I have now completed the additional troubleshooting step of creating a brand-new API key under the same project and testing it with a minimal gemini-3.6-flash request.

The new API key returns the exact same error:

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

Age verification, phone verification, and 2-Step Verification have also been completed, and there are no suspension or policy warning messages on the account.

Since a newly generated API key receives the same error, could this case please be escalated for a manual review of the project/account restriction?

I would like to remain on the Free Tier if the restriction was applied in error.

Thank you.