Google Cloud is introducing a new quota model for Application Load Balancers covering load balancer configuration size. The primary purpose of this new quota is to protect the data plane of cloud Application Load Balancers and improve overall reliability.
For developers managing complex routing rules, this brings a highly requested improvement: thanks to the introduction of this new quota, the individual URL map size limit has been increased from 64KB/128KB to 1MB for Application Load Balancers based on Envoy proxy.
Here is a breakdown of how the new quota works, how it is calculated, and what it means for your load balancing configurations.
Increased URL map limits
The transition to this new model allows for significantly larger (15x) individual configurations for Envoy-based load balancers.
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Global External Application Load Balancers: 1MB
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Regional External Application Load Balancers: 1MB
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Regional Internal Application Load Balancers: 1MB
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Cross-Regional Internal Application Load Balancers: 1MB
Classic External Application Load Balancer stays at 64KB. When managing URL maps under the new model, you must account for two distinct size factors: the new configuration size quota (which covers multiple URL maps at the same time across a project or VPC) and the individual URL map size limit (which cannot exceed 1MB).
Understanding quota units
Instead of relying solely on strict kilobyte limits, the new configuration size quota is measured in “quota units”.
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Quota units reflect the complexity of your URL map configuration.
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A larger and more complex URL map will consume more quota units.
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Only URL maps that are referenced by a forwarding rule (meaning they are in active use) contribute to the configuration size quota.
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URL maps that are not actively used do not contribute to your quota.
The forwarding rule multiplier
Your total quota consumption is calculated dynamically based on how your URL maps are deployed. The forwarding rule acts as a multiplier for your quota units.
Total Quota Consumption = Quota Units Ă— Number of Forwarding Rules
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The more forwarding rules referencing the same URL map, the more quota units are consumed.
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For example, if a given URL map consumes 1000 quota units when referenced by a single forwarding rule, adding two more forwarding rules to the same URL map will increase the quota units consumed to 3000.
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If you delete a forwarding rule, the corresponding quota units are released.
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If you update a target proxy to point to a different URL map, the quota for the old URL map is released, and the new URL map is charged.
Applicable quota scopes
Depending on the load balancer type, the new quota has different scopes, such as per-project, per-VPC, or per-region-per-VPC.
| Quota Name | Covered Products |
|---|---|
| GLOBAL-EXTERNAL-PROXY-LB-CONFIG-per-project | Global External Application Load Balancer and Global External Classic Application Load Balancer |
| CROSS-REGIONAL-INTERNAL-PROXY-LB-CONFIG-per-region-per-VPC | Cross-regional Internal Application Load Balancer |
| REGIONAL-EXTERNAL-PROXY-LB-CONFIG-per-region-per-VPC | Regional External Application Load Balancer |
| REGIONAL-INTERNAL-PROXY-LB-CONFIG-per-region-per-VPC | Regional Internal Application Load Balancer |
Checking your quota usage
You can monitor your current quota use through the Google Cloud Console and through the API/gcloud CLI.
Google Cloud Console
You can check your project’s URL map quota consumption directly through the Google Cloud Console by navigating to IAM & Admin > Quotas & System Limits. From there, you can filter by specific quota names to view your current usage, track historical consumption, and set up alerting policies.
Google Cloud CLI (gcloud)
The system provides a read-only quotaUsage object detailing the total number of units the URL map consumes and the number of forwarding rules using it.
Check an existing URL map:
$gcloud beta compute url-maps describe sge4baa56f-url-map
creationTimestamp: '2026-04-18T04:05:43.349-07:00'
defaultService: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/sg-urlmap-newquota/global/backendServices/sge4baa56f-app-bs
fingerprint: m407BCUg91o=
id: '9057687637759310313'
kind: compute#urlMap
name: sge4baa56f-url-map
selfLink: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/beta/projects/sg-urlmap-newquota/global/urlMaps/sge4baa56f-url-map
status:
quotaUsage:
forwardingRules: 1
units: '6009'
Validate a quota before a creation or update (available at GA):
To validate quota consumption before creating or updating a URL map configuration you can use gclud compute url-maps validate command when the feature reaches General Availability (GA).
$gcloud beta compute url-maps validate --source=PATH_TO_CONFIG_FILE.yaml
For more details please consult official documentation.
Note on availability: This feature is currently in the allowlisted Public Preview. If you are currently hitting the size limit for your URL maps, please contact Google Cloud Support to have your project enrolled into the Public Preview.