My API access has been blocked since July 4 with the following error:
429 - Your account is not active, please check your billing details
I’ve submitted a support ticket on July 4 and followed up multiple times. I’ve received replies from AI agents and generic updates, but the issue remains unresolved, and I haven’t had any working API access since then.
Here’s my current status:
Billing is active
Payment method valid and verified
Credits purchased and shown on the dashboard
Used $0.35 of $120 limit
Only 22 requests made before the issue occurred
No error or warning email received
No violations of Terms of Use
This is blocking production work and client integrations
I understand this may be due to an internal account flag, but I have not received any communication confirming that.
Can someone from the OpenAI team or moderation staff please escalate this to Trust & Safety or Billing?
This issue is critical for business operations, and I would deeply appreciate any help.
There is a new onboarding procedure that may give some new signups some free usage without actually purchasing credits. It is undocumented, therefore it is easy to reach wrong conclusions about your organization, or possibly unexpected errors.
The first thing I would do: review your actual payments here:
There should be individual line items for credit grants marked “available” or “expired” (ignore the big total at the top, which works backwards).
Having actually paid, you would see individual credits such as:
Jun 1 2025 - available - $5.81 / $10.00 - expires July 2026
The first $5.81 would be the amount of the particular payment remaining.
Try to chat with the prompts playground - it doesn’t require proper use of an API key. If that works, then you can proceed to ensuring proper API use with a project API key.
The error itself about “account not active” is quite unusual, especially if you got no automated email. The hopeful case here is that you are just submitting a combination of incorrect header credentials with your API request. OpenAI can shut off orgs for things such as the API requests originating from unsupported countries, but this usually results in permanent “bye bye organization and account”.
I’m using a project-based API key with the correct org ID in the header, and it worked fine before July 4. Playground works as expected too — but all API requests fail with:
429 - Your account is not active, please check your billing details.
I’ve had no warnings, no emails, and support confirmed there are no billing, usage, or credit issues.
This leads me to think it’s a silent Trust & Safety or security flag or just a glitch.
It’s been 14 days now, and support keeps saying it’s “under review” but no one from Trust & Safety responds. I’ve submitted Org ID, all screenshots, payment confirmations, and impact explanation.
Appreciate your ideas — if you know any way to nudge this to the right internal team, I’d be grateful!
Thank you for checking in here. I can confirm you’ve done all the right checks (your active billing, valid payment method, and Playground access all indicate this likely isn’t a standard billing issue).
We just replied to your ongoing support thread and will continue following up there to help.
Thank you for confirming that everything looks fine on my end and for following up on my support thread.
However, I just received another reply from a support agent (Ma. Pauline), repeating generic advice about rate limits and billing settings — despite the fact that:
The actual error is: 429 - Your account is not active, please check your billing details on our website.
My billing is active, I have valid payment methods, and I’ve already paid for usage.
API access has been blocked for all endpoints and API keys since July 4, even though the Playground works fine.
Previous support agents have already confirmed this issue is likely account-level and should be escalated to Trust & Safety.
This kind of response is disappointing, especially given that the issue is business-critical and already open for over two weeks.
Please ensure the internal team is aware that the latest response from support does not address the root cause and that the case remains unresolved.
The issue has finally been resolved — thank you for your help, explanations, and patience
I’d like to highlight that the reason it took so long to get to the bottom of it came down to two key points:
Unclear indication of the reason for the block and the simple need to top up the account.
For the past 8 months, I had occasionally used the API without manual top-ups, relying only on my Plus subscription — and everything worked perfectly. So the message about the “billing plan canceled on 2024-11-02” didn’t raise any concerns.
Automated support replies that created confusion.
In the early stages, support tickets were closed or redirected, which gave the impression that the issue required in-depth investigation. Only after bringing it up here on the forum did I receive a clear and human response.
Thanks again — the forum helped clarify the situation
