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Claude Code Issues / Error strings / Your credit balance is too low

Your credit balance is too low

The workspace ran out of prepaid credit for API calls.

76 issues · 11 open · 65 resolved (86%) · first seen Mar 6, 2025

First response · account

What to do now

Most likely: Authentication, usage state or session size blocked the request.

  1. Check the exact account, organization and usage window currently selected.
  2. Try a new short session before deleting credentials or local history.
  3. If the state is inconsistent across machines, preserve diagnostics and re-authenticate once.

These are conservative triage steps, not an official Anthropic fix. Use the issue and workaround evidence below before making a destructive configuration change.

Is this getting better or worse?

This class of problem is holding steady. 21 new reports in the last 90 days vs 22 in the 90 before — -5%. The open backlog peaked at 11 in 2026-08 and sits at 11 today.

0 3 6 8 11 2025-032025-092026-032026-08
2025-03 — First reports2026-03 — Most new reports (9)2026-08 — Peak backlog (11 open)

Derived by counting each matching issue from its creation date until it closed. First-party computation over the anthropics/claude-code tracker — the trend is not published anywhere upstream.

Which builds report this

38 of these reports name the Claude Code build they were running, spanning 31 releases. Heaviest reporters:

Report volume, not a defect count: an issue can mention a build without that build having caused the failure. Versions come from the version string in the bug-report template, matched against real published tags.

Do these get fixed?

Median time to close is 10 days across 65 closures. Of the 65 closures with a recorded reason, 28% were closed as completed and 47 as not-planned or duplicate. The most recent completed fix landed in 2026-08.

Workarounds reported by the community

6 of these issues post a workaround someone says worked. The highest-engagement ones:

Expose organization API credit balance to statusLine scripts (and via Admin API)
+1. As a workaround I built a statusline script that tracks cost per session using the cost fields already in the JSON (total cost usd, total api duration ms, total lines added, etc.). It persists each session's cost to…
Found in the thread of #47574 · resolved
[BUG] OAuth login fails with ERR_INVALID_IP_ADDRESS behind corporate proxy (regression since 2.0.37)
…Only OAuth login fails with the IP address error. Attempted Workarounds (None Worked) Attempt Result --------- -------- No effect Still prompts for login No effect Disable IPv6 via sysctl Permission denied in container W…
Found in the description of #12353 · resolved
[BUG] Pipe Operation affects API Billing
I am running a script from a subdirectory. If I attempt to pipe messages as shown below, Claude will raise a credit balance too low error. This happens only in the subdirectory...
Found in the description of #2784 · resolved
Silent fallback from expired subscription OAuth to legacy API credentials drains Console credits without warning
…, no indicator; discovery only via drained Console balance. Workaround (what we had to do manually) - Delete and - Pin in - Install a SessionStart hook + a cron watchdog that deletes any reappearing legacy credential fil…
Found in the description of #86794 · still open
[BUG] Unexpected Logout Followed by "Credit Balance Too Low" Error
…iption plan 5. "Credit balance is too low" error appears 6. Workaround: run → again → issue resolved Expected behavior Claude Code should maintain the authenticated session and recognize the active Pro plan without requi…
Found in the description of #62289 · resolved

Excerpts are quoted from the linked issue so you can judge relevance before opening it. Threads that only ask for a workaround, or report that there is none, are excluded. These are community suggestions, not official guidance from Anthropic — read the full thread before applying one.

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Ranked by community engagement (reactions weighted over comments).

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