Request for manual review - Gemini API project denied access (403 PERMISSION_DENIED)

Gemini API
1

All generateContent calls from my project return 403 PERMISSION_DENIED with “Your project has been denied access. Please contact support.”

Project ID: gen-lang-client-08014576..
Tier: free

What works: GET /v1beta/models returns 200 with 50 models, so the API key authenticates correctly.

What fails: every generateContent call, on every model I tried (gemini-3.6-flash, gemini-3.1-flash-lite, gemini-3.5-flash, gemini-3.5-flash-lite, gemini-flash-latest, gemini-flash-lite-latest) returns the same 403.

Timeline: the key worked until around September 16, 2026. In that period the Google account was temporarily blocked and has since been recovered. After the recovery the key authenticates again, but generateContent is still denied.

Creating a new API key inside the same project did not change anything.

This is a small non-commercial project: an app that helps university students keep track of their coursework. Usage is low and well within the free tier limits. I am not aware of any policy violation and I would appreciate a manual review of the project.

Thanks.

2

Hello @nom ,

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:

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

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

  5. 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

Hi Sai, thanks for the checklist.

We’ve completed all the applicable steps on the account (nom…@gmail.com, project ID n-m-app):

  • Age verification: date of birth is set on the account.
  • Phone verification: two phone numbers verified.
  • 2-Step Verification: already active (passkeys, Authenticator, phone number, backup codes).

After completing these, we retested with a free-tier model (Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite) directly in the AI Studio Playground and still get:

Failed to generate content: permission denied.

The project is still on the free tier with no billing attached. Could you take another look at the flag on this project? Happy to provide any additional details needed.

Project: n-m-app
API key project: nom-app

4

Hello @nom ,

It seems like your projects are flagged by automated account security checks. To unblock this error, you should consider upgrading to a paid plan. You could add prepayment credits directly in Google AI Studio and/ or by attaching an active billing account in the Google Cloud Console.