No free tier working at all. Not minimal use, just completely not working

[thewesjohnson]

What happened?

No gemini-3.1-pro-preview, ,gemini-3-flash, gemini-3-pro, gemini-2.5-pro, gemini-2.5-flash tokens, all showing as undefined, and quota exhausted. I generated another api key in another project, and still had the same issue, all requests failing immediately as 429 - too many requests, and non of the quotas being used, yet still being exhausted.

bug-report-history-1773535643073.json

    '* Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_input_token_count, limit: 0, model: gemini-3.1-pro\n' +                                                    │

│ '* Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_requests, limit: 0, model: gemini-3.1-pro\n' + │
│ '* Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_requests, limit: 0, model: gemini-3.1-pro\n' + │
│ '* Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_input_token_count, limit: 0, model: gemini-3.1-pro\n' + │
│ 'Please retry in 25.465784708s.', │
│ details: [ [Object], [Object], [Object] ] │
│ }, │
│ retryDelayMs: undefined, │
│ reason: undefined │
│ } │
│ ✖ Error when talking to Gemini API Full report available at: /var/folders/mn/1hz8tx7x1b3f59zvk61bf74c0000gn/T/gemini-client-error-Turn.run-sendMessageStream-2026-03-15T00-46-03-527Z.json │
│ TerminalQuotaError: You have exhausted your daily quota on this model. │
│ at classifyGoogleError (file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli-core/dist/src/utils/googleQuotaErrors.js:215:24) │
│ at retryWithBackoff (file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli-core/dist/src/utils/retry.js:153:37) │
│ at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:104:5) │
│ at async GeminiChat.makeApiCallAndProcessStream │
│ (file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli-core/dist/src/core/geminiChat.js:445:32) │
│ at async GeminiChat.streamWithRetries │
│ (file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli-core/dist/src/core/geminiChat.js:265:40) │
│ at async Turn.run (file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli-core/dist/src/core/turn.js:70:30) █│
│ at async GeminiClient.processTurn (file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli-core/dist/src/core/client.js:478:26) █│
│ at async GeminiClient.sendMessageStream (file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli-core/dist/src/core/client.js:579:20)█│
│ at async file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/dist/src/ui/hooks/useGeminiStream.js:758:26 █│
│ at async file:///opt/homebrew/Cellar/gemini-cli/0.33.1/libexec/lib/node_modules/@google/gemini-cli/dist/src/ui/hooks/useGeminiStream.js:902:42 { █│
│ cause: { █│
│ code: 429, █│
│ message: 'You exceeded your current quota, please check your plan and billing details. For more information on this error, head to: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/rate-limits. To monitor your █│
│ current usage, head to: https://ai.dev/rate-limit. \n' + █│
│ '* Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_input_token_count, limit: 0, model: gemini-3.1-pro\n' + █│
│ '* Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_requests, limit: 0, model: gemini-3.1-pro\n' + █│
│ '* Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_requests, limit: 0, model: gemini-3.1-pro\n' + █│
│ '* Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_input_token_count, limit: 0, model: gemini-3.1-pro\n' + █│
│ 'Please retry in 56.42777108s.', █│
│ details: [ [Object], [Object], [Object] ] █│
│ }, █│
│ retryDelayMs: undefined, █│
│ reason: undefined █│
│ }

What did you expect to happen?

Being able to execute on any of the models at all.

Client information

• CLI Version: 0.33.1
• Git Commit: f59f9e9
• Session ID: e3fa7f74-b3e8-46e0-b94d-147cd8743b22
• Operating System: darwin v25.8.1
• Sandbox Environment: no sandbox
• Model Version: gemini-3.1-pro-preview-customtools
• Auth Type: gemini-api-key
• Memory Usage: 248.4 MB
• Terminal Name: Unknown
• Terminal Background: #212734
• Kitty Keyboard Protocol: Unsupported

Login information

Google Account with API Key

Anything else we need to know?

No response

[jackwotherspoon]

Looks like you are using a free tier API key through AI Studio. To the best of my knowledge those are not supported in Gemini CLI. If you instead use "Login with Google" via /auth you can login with a Google account and take advantage of our free tier.

Otherwise a paid API key should work from AI Studio.

Hope this helps, thanks!

[yagueto]

those are not supported in Gemini CLI

This project's README specifies, in the Authentication Options section, that Gemini API Keys are supported in the Free tier with ~1000 requests/day included (https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli#option-2-gemini-api-key).

Is this an error?