Pricing

Gemini CLI Free Tier Limits in 2026: What Changed on June 18 and What Still Works

Gemini CLI stopped serving free and Google One users on June 18, 2026. What still works with an API key, the limits, and where free users went instead.

By Engineer Foodie Desk Oct 25, 2026 ✓ Sources checked Oct 25, 2026

8 min read

Quota table checked Oct 25, 2026 on Gemini CLI’s quota and pricing page; the June 18 change checked Oct 20, 2026 on Google’s Developers Blog. Other dates are under Sources. No affiliate links on this page (how we work).

Short version: the Gemini CLI free tier you remember, 1,000 requests a day just for signing in with a Google account, is over. Google’s own docs page now opens with this banner: “Unpaid tier and Google One users: Gemini CLI was replaced by Antigravity CLI on June 18th, 2026” (verified Oct 25, 2026).

What still works for $0 is narrow: a free Gemini API key, which the quota page lists at 250 requests a day on the Flash model only (API key only, verified Oct 25, 2026). Everyone else either pays (an API key or a company Code Assist license) or moves to Antigravity CLI, Google’s replacement.

And yes, if something told you “1,000 free requests a day” and your terminal disagrees, the terminal wins. That number is from before June 18. Part of Google’s own docs still shows it, which I’ll get to.

We haven’t tested Gemini CLI. Everything below comes from Google’s pages, quoted and dated.

Short answer: the consumer free tier ended June 18, 2026

Google announced it on May 19, 2026: “On June 18, 2026, Gemini CLI and Gemini Code Assist IDE extensions will stop serving requests for Google AI Pro and Ultra, as well as those using it free of charge using Gemini Code Assist for individuals” (verified Oct 20, 2026).

So three groups lost Gemini CLI on that date:

Free users signing in with a personal Google account (Gemini Code Assist for individuals).
Google AI Pro subscribers ($19.99/mo).
Google AI Ultra subscribers ($99.99 or $199.99/mo; plan prices verified Oct 20, 2026).

That last part stings. People paying Google $200 a month lost Gemini CLI access along with the free crowd. Google moved them to Antigravity, which takes its limits from the same Google AI plans, so they didn’t lose the plan. They lost the tool they had set up.

Walter White said he was in the empire business. Google is apparently in the rebrand business: same company, same models, new CLI, and every shell alias you wrote in 2025 now points at a door that’s closed.

Who can still use Gemini CLI, and on what limits

Per the blog, two groups keep Gemini CLI. Company users: “If your organization uses Gemini CLI… via a Gemini Code Assist Standard or Enterprise license… your access remains unchanged.” And API keys: “Gemini CLI will remain accessible via paid Gemini and Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform API keys” (verified Oct 20, 2026).

The quota page (verified Oct 25, 2026) gives the daily numbers for those paths:

Gemini API key, free tier (unpaid): 250 requests per user per day, “Model requests to Flash model only.” This is an API-key limit, not the old sign-in free tier. Note the blog only promises paid API keys going forward; the quota page still lists the free key tier.
Gemini API key, pay-as-you-go: “Varies”. You pay per token. Google calls it “the only way to ensure your workflow isn’t interrupted by reaching a limit on your quota.”
Vertex AI Express mode (free): “Varies”, with “90 days before you need to enable billing.”
Workspace, Code Assist Standard: 1,500 requests per user per day.
Workspace, Code Assist Enterprise: 2,000 requests per user per day.
Workspace AI Ultra: 2,000 requests per user per day.

Code Assist Standard costs $22.80 per user a month, or $19 with an annual commitment; Enterprise is $54, or $45 annual (verified Oct 15, 2026; check current price before you buy seats).

Some other fine print that’s still on the page. “Requests are limited per user per minute” too, not just per day. “Tiers not listed above, including Google AI Plus, are not supported.” So the $4.99 Plus plan never covered Gemini CLI. On the company side, “Workspace AI Standard/Plus and AI Expanded” aren’t supported either. Gemini for Workspace plans “do not apply to the API usage which powers the Gemini CLI.”

To see where you stand, the docs point to /stats model, which shows “your current session’s token usage, as well as information about the limits associated with your current quota.”

The docs page contradicts itself

Here’s the awkward bit. The same quota page that says Gemini CLI was replaced for unpaid users still lists “Gemini Code Assist (Individual): 1,000 requests”, “Google AI Pro: 1,500 requests” and “Google AI Ultra: 2,000 requests” in its table. It still has a “Free usage” section promising “1000 maximum model requests / user / day” for Google sign-in (verified Oct 25, 2026). The footer says “Last updated: Jun 18, 2026.”

The page says the free tier is gone. Then the table on the same page says it’s 1,000 a day. Oscar Martinez would raise a hand and say “Actually…”, and he’d be right: Google’s blog post is the clearer statement of what changed, so we go with the blog. Treat those three rows as no longer served. Honestly, it’s frustrating. This is the page people land on when their CLI stops working, and it sends them two opposite answers.

Old vs new, side by side

Account	Before	Now	Source
Google sign-in (free)	1,000/day	Not served	Blog
Google AI Pro	1,500/day	Not served	Blog
Google AI Ultra	2,000/day	Not served	Blog
Google AI Plus	Not supported	Not supported	Quota page
Free API key	250/day, Flash	Listed: 250/day, Flash	Quota page
Paid API key	Varies	Varies	Both
Code Assist Std	1,500/day	1,500/day	Both
Code Assist Ent	2,000/day	2,000/day	Both

“Before” values are the quota table rows; “Now” for the consumer rows comes from the May 19 blog (verified Oct 20, 2026). The quota page itself was checked Oct 25, 2026.

Does a free Gemini API key work?

As listed, yes, with two caveats. First, 250 requests a day on Flash only: no Pro models. Google’s API pricing page lists the free tier as “Free of charge” on its Flash models, and Gemini 4 Argon isn’t on the free tier (verified Oct 18–19, 2026). Second, the blog’s wording is “paid” API keys, so the free key path is the one most likely to change without much notice. Use it for light work and side projects, not something a deadline depends on.

One more thing: the quota page adds that “Gemini CLI has not been optimized for Gemini 4 Argon. To use Gemini 4 Argon, please use Antigravity” (verified Oct 20, 2026). So even on a paid key, Google is steering the newest model away from Gemini CLI.

Where free users went: Antigravity CLI

Google’s answer for everyone it cut off is Antigravity CLI: “Starting today, Antigravity CLI is available to everyone” (blog, May 19, 2026, verified Oct 20, 2026). It’s “Built in Go” and carries over “Agent Skills, Hooks, Subagents, and Extensions (now as Antigravity plugins)”.

Antigravity’s free plan is “$0/month” with “Basic weekly rate limits”, and Google doesn’t publish the number (verified Oct 25, 2026). Its plans docs list the CLI among the baseline features every plan gets (verified Oct 25, 2026). So the free path still exists. It’s just a different binary, with a weekly cap where you used to get a daily one.

Full breakdown of what’s free there, plus the student offer: Is Google Antigravity free? Plan-by-plan prices: Antigravity pricing.

Here’s what I’d do

Free personal account: stop fighting Gemini CLI and install Antigravity CLI. That’s where Google moved the free tier.
Paying for Google AI Pro or Ultra: same answer. Your plan still counts in Antigravity, just not in Gemini CLI.
You want Gemini CLI specifically, for $0: a free API key at 250 Flash requests a day, and accept it can change.
Heavy daily use: a paid API key (Gemini API pricing), and set a budget alert, because you pay per token.
Company on Code Assist Standard or Enterprise: nothing changed for you. Carry on.
Considering leaving Google entirely: see Gemini CLI vs Claude Code and AI coding tools compared.

Prefer working in an IDE? Is Gemini Code Assist free? covers the editor plugin’s free tier and how it shares limits with the CLI.

Seeing a 429 error rather than a clean limit message? Gemini CLI “429 RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED” explains per-minute vs daily quota and the fixes.

A 400 error isn’t a quota problem: the Gemini CLI 400 invalid-argument fix lists the usual causes.

Paying Google for higher limits? Google AI Pro vs Ultra compares the two plans.

Not every Gemini CLI error is a quota. Gemini CLI 503 “The model is overloaded” covers the capacity error.

Free-tier caps are separate from a 500 INTERNAL. For the server-error path, see Gemini CLI Error 500.

The heap-out-of-memory crash is a local Node limit, not a free-tier quota: Gemini CLI heap out of memory.

FAQ

Is Gemini CLI still free? Not for personal Google sign-ins; that free tier ended June 18, 2026, though the quota page still lists a free API key at 250 Flash requests a day.

What are the Gemini CLI free tier limits? The only free path left on the quota page is a free Gemini API key: 250 requests per user per day, Flash model only, plus per-minute limits.

Does a free Gemini API key work with Gemini CLI? The quota page still lists it at 250 requests a day on Flash, but Google’s blog only promises paid API keys going forward.

Does Google AI Pro include Gemini CLI? No, Google stopped serving Google AI Pro and Ultra in Gemini CLI on June 18, 2026; those plans now apply in Antigravity.

Does Google AI Plus work with Gemini CLI? No, the quota page says Google AI Plus is not supported.

What replaced the Gemini CLI free tier? Antigravity CLI, which Google made available to everyone, with a $0 plan that has unpublished weekly rate limits.

Why does the docs page still say 1,000 requests a day? The table wasn’t updated; the same page’s banner and Google’s blog say the free individual tier was replaced on June 18, 2026.

Sources

Gemini CLI, Quotas and pricing (banner, quota table, API key free tier, Plus not supported, /stats): https://geminicli.com/docs/resources/quota-and-pricing/ (verified 2026-10-25; Argon line verified 2026-10-20)
Google Developers Blog, An important update: transitioning Gemini CLI to Antigravity CLI (May 19, 2026): https://developers.googleblog.com/an-important-update-transitioning-gemini-cli-to-antigravity-cli/ (verified 2026-10-20)
Google AI plans (Plus, Pro, Ultra prices): https://gemini.google/subscriptions/ (verified 2026-10-20)
Gemini Code Assist (Standard, Enterprise prices): https://codeassist.google/ (verified 2026-10-15)
Gemini API pricing (free tier, Argon not on free): https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing (verified 2026-10-18/19)
Antigravity pricing: https://antigravity.google/pricing (verified 2026-10-25)
Antigravity docs, Plans (CLI in baseline features): https://antigravity.google/docs/plans (verified 2026-10-25)