429 Resource exhausted since this morning on all Gemini tools, including gemini-2.5-flash

Google Cloud Build with AI AI APIs
1

Since 2026-04-21 around 09:00 CEST, all of my Gemini-based tools have started failing with:

429 Resource exhausted. Please try again later.

This affects multiple tools/workflows, not just one script.
Originally I was using gemini-2.0-flash, but I also tested gemini-2.5-flash and I get the same error there as well.

Important details:

  • low request volume

  • requests are serialized on my side

  • no burst traffic

  • often even the first request after startup fails

  • retries with backoff do not recover

So this does not look like a simple client-side rate spike.

The error happens during the Gemini generation step.

Questions:

  1. Is there a known incident today affecting Gemini API / Vertex AI?

  2. Could this be a quota/billing/tier mismatch even at low usage?

  3. How can I distinguish between actual quota exhaustion and backend/shared-capacity exhaustion?

  4. Has anyone else seen this today with both gemini-2.0-flash and gemini-2.5-flash?

Any help would be appreciated.

4

Looks like it’s not just you—429 errors usually mean hitting rate limits or temporary server overload. With recent quota changes and high demand, even low usage can trigger it. Trying a different model, region, or adding retries/backoff might help for now.

5

Try upgrading models from 2.0 flash to 2.5 flash and you might vanish the issue. also add this

from google import genai
from google.genai import types

client = genai.Client(
    api_key="",
    http_options=types.HttpOptions(api_version='v1',
                                   retry_options=types.HttpRetryOptions(
            attempts=3,
            initial_delay=2.0,
            http_status_codes=[408, 429, 500, 502, 503, 504]  # Retry on these codes
        )
                                  
                                  )
)

response = client.models.generate_content(
    model='gemini-2.0-flash-lite',
    contents=types.Part.from_text(text='Why is the sky blue?'),
    config=types.GenerateContentConfig(
        temperature=0,
        
    ),
)
print(response)