[▲ Vercel Community](/) · [Categories](/categories) · [Latest](/latest) · [Top](/top) · [Live](/live) [Help](/c/help/9) # Resolving 403 Forbidden error for Vercel AI Gateway API keys 484 views · 9 likes · 55 posts Hazlettmcdonalds459 5089 (@hazlettmcdonalds459) · 2026-01-21 I have an open support case (Case 929589) about an AI Gateway API Key returning a `403 Forbidden` error that was created on 1/19/2026. It has been several days since the case was created and last updated on 1/21/2026, but I have not received any response from the support team. I need assistance with this issue and would like human support to help resolve it. Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-01-21 Hey, @hazlettmcdonalds459! Happy to help you out here whilst you wait for support. For the 403 Forbidden error with AI Gateway API Key specifically, this could be related to: * API key permissions or scope issues * Rate limiting * Incorrect endpoint configuration * Authentication header formatting If you can share more details about how you’re implementing the AI Gateway API calls, the community might be able to help troubleshoot. Thanks! Ypzhuang (@ypzhuang) · 2026-02-01 I got the same error: ``` ``` curl -v -X POST “https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/chat/completions” -H “Authorization: Bearer mygateway_key” -H “Content-Type: application/json” -d ‘{“model”: “alibaba/qwen-3-14b”, “messages”: \[{“role”: “user”, “content”: “Hi”}\]}’ ``` ``` Here is the error msg: {“error”:{“message”:“Forbidden.”,“type”:“access_denied”}} I ‘m sure the key is right, And I regenerated a new key, still same error. Francisco Sousa (@goodxico) · 2026-02-01 Exact same issues. Can’t use AI on hobby accounts even with a valid credit card on file and enough credits to spare. Ypzhuang (@ypzhuang) · 2026-02-03 But Hobby and Pro have no difference on AI Gateway  next (@haiooiah) · 2026-02-03 I ran into the same issue—starting yesterday I’ve been getting a 403 error. Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-03 Hey, everyone! Thank you for your patience, flagging with the right team internally to help out. In the meantime it's worth verifying your AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY, checking if a billing method is attached to your account, ensuring `teamId` is included for team projects, and checking for incorrect authorization scopes. The 403 error indicates insufficient permissions, invalid/missing authentication, or billing issues. Jonothanhunt (@jonothanhunt) · 2026-02-01  Getting error above when using playground and 403 when using AI gateway; responseBody: ‘{“error”:{“message”:“Forbidden.”,“type”:“access_denied”}}’ I have (and have had for some time) a valid card which is used for billing and even adding credit to the AI gateway. This has only happened recently, was working previously. Project works great on another Pro account I have. Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-03 Hi, everyone! Thanks for your patience :slight_smile: We had some credit card validation issues for the free tier You shouldn't see the 403 error now - let me know if you're still seeing it :) Ypzhuang (@ypzhuang) · 2026-02-04 Still seeing it. {"error":{"message":"Forbidden.","type":"access_denied"}} JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-04 This is still happening even for PRO users on the AI playground: \[Error\] Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 403 () (generate, line 0) on https://ai-sdk.dev/api/generate Has nothing to do with card validation though. https://ai-sdk.dev/playground next (@haiooiah) · 2026-02-05 Still same error {“error”:{“message”:“Forbidden.”,“type”:“access_denied”}}% Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-05 Thank you folks! I've shared again with the team. Gowthamprakaash (@gowthamprakaash) · 2026-02-08 I am also facing this in hobby account. Angel Mitrov (@angelmitrov) · 2026-02-08 I’m seeing the exact same error, and it’s directly impacting our product and customers. This isn’t just a technical inconvenience, it’s affecting the experience of real users in production. We urgently need clarification or a fix from the Vercel team, because this issue is causing customer-facing problems. Xam (@gold-1333) · 2026-02-08 · ♥ 1 Still happening. ``` { "error": { "message": "Forbidden.", "type": "access_denied" } } ``` I can confirm that I have a valid payment method on file, and it was previously working. Jacob Paris (@jacobparis) · 2026-02-08 · ♥ 1 Support team is saying they don't see any of your teams in the list, are you seeing this on a different account than you're logged in here with? Alperen Özdemir (@alperen-ozdemir) · 2026-02-08 I'm experiencing same consistent 403 Forbidden / access_denied errors when using Vercel AI Gateway for my project, despite having a Pro plan with valid billing and available AI Gateway credits. I have verified: - Created multiple fresh AI Gateway API keys from the team-level AI Gateway API Keys page - API keys are active and have not been revoked - Correct request format with Bearer token authorization and proper model naming (provider/model-name format) - Tested with direct curl requests bypassing my application entirely - Same 403 error occurs from both deployed Next.js application and direct API calls The error occurs consistently: - HTTP status: 403 - Error type: access_denied - Error message: "Forbidden." - Endpoint: [https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/chat/completions](https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/chat/completions) This is reproducible across multiple fresh API keys and occurs at the gateway level, indicating this is not a client-side configuration issue but rather an account- or project-level AI Gateway access issue. I suspect there may be an entitlement flag, internal restriction, or configuration preventing access despite my Pro plan status and available credits. Gowthamprakaash (@gowthamprakaash) · 2026-02-09 Hi Jacob, I am facing the issue in the same account from which I am messaging here. JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-09 No, I am seeing it on this email address. See the screenshot. Also this used to work, just broken about 3 weeks ago and never recovered. See the screenshot. [details="(attachments)"]  [/details] JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-09 This is the POST I am doing {"playgroundId":"b4a12e8e-51ae-470a-b47e-c08dc868e097","chatId":"1","chatIds":["0","1","HtT29O2"],"model":"openai:gpt-5.1","temperature":0.7,"maxTokens":64000,"topP":1,"frequencyPenalty":0,"presencePenalty":0,"stopSequences":[],"isCodeExecutionEnabled":true,"id":"b4a12e8e-51ae-470a-b47e-c08dc868e097_1","messages":[{"id":"de755569-f398-42d3-8f77-db223e9e1e92","role":"user","parts":[{"type":"text","text":"hi"}]}],"trigger":"submit-message"} And response URL: https://ai-sdk.dev/api/generate Status: 403 Source: Network Address: 64.239.109.65:443 Initiator: playground:80:7162 Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-09 We've shared internally. Thanks for your patience! JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-10 · ♥ 1 I cannot believe this has been happening for 3 weeks now. Ypzhuang (@ypzhuang) · 2026-02-11 It works now. Thanks. Arhatpradhan (@arhatpradhan) · 2026-02-11 I am still having the same issue, did you do anything different or it just started working. Also which tier/plan are you on? JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-11 Same issue as before. iamkunal9 (@iamkunal9) · 2026-02-11 same issue here Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2026-02-11 Hi @iamkunal9, @arhatpradhan, @justinian, could you share the account/team name where you are seeing this issue? Filip D (@uglyboysadface) · 2026-02-11 same here, dubjafil’s projects JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-11 · ♥ 1 user: justinian-tomegea team: energyaspects  A Chen (@achen7x7-3130) · 2026-02-11 Same here. I have having the exact same issue. I’m on a free account, I keep getting 403; I did not change my code since Dec 2025. project: motivational-quotes username: achen7x7-3130 Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-11 · ♥ 1 Hey everyone! We have our product team looking into this. Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2026-02-12 Hi @justinian, can you confirm if your issue has been resolved now? JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-12 I cannot, there is absolutely no change  Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2026-02-12 Thanks for confirming let me check again with the team. Anshuman Bhardwaj (@anshumanb) · 2026-02-13 · ♥ 1 Hi @justinian, can you confirm the account again? As per our records the user and team you shared shouldn't be affected by this issue. Have you tried logging out and in again? JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-13 Yes, I’ve logged in, logged out, cleared cookie, cleared cache, logged in with passkey, logged in with github, nothing works Summary URL: https://ai-sdk.dev/api/generate Status: 403 Source: Network Address: 64.239.109.193:443 Initiator: ai-sdk.dev:80:7162 ``` {"playgroundId":"4f560326-1848-4e4e-99da-f0a385758ab6","chatId":"pElOvUX","chatIds":["pElOvUX"],"model":"google:gemini-2.5-pro","temperature":0.7,"maxTokens":32768,"topP":1,"frequencyPenalty":0,"presencePenalty":0,"stopSequences":[],"isCodeExecutionEnabled":true,"id":"4f560326-1848-4e4e-99da-f0a385758ab6_pElOvUX","messages":[{"id":"038c6e2b-fb5c-4d11-ad83-89ee1307ebce","role":"user","parts":[{"type":"text","text":"hello"}]},{"id":"b1e27884-76c5-4552-8764-0cfedf706078","role":"user","parts":[{"type":"text","text":"hello"}]}],"trigger":"submit-message"} ``` adding: ``` Response :status: 403 Cache-Control: public, max-age=0, must-revalidate Content-Length: 0 Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2026 11:29:54 GMT Server: Vercel Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=63072000 Vary: RSC, Next-Router-State-Tree, Next-Router-Prefetch, Next-Router-Segment-Prefetch x-matched-path: /api/generate x-vercel-cache: MISS x-vercel-id: lhr1::iad1::4n9cs-1770982193360-81eec777ad74 ``` Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-13 Which team are you on? Can you share your team ID with us? As Anshuman shared, your user/team should't be affected. JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-13 same team as pointed above : energyaspects  Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-13 Yeah, as Anshuman shared, you shouldn't be affected by this issue - we've checked your account. It's weird! But thank you for sharing all that information, we shared it with our product team to take a look. They are based out in SF so there will be delays in responses, appreciate you being patience :slight_smile: JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-13 · ♥ 1 Sure, but this is not a product change, unless something really bad has happened 3-4 weeks ago. This is a pure technical error, as stated this used to work very well. Last time it worked was this playground https://ai-sdk.dev/playground/s/811dQvCxBvcc Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-13 · ♥ 1 [quote="JT, post:49, topic:31724, username:justinian"] This is a pure technical error, as stated this used to work very well. [/quote] Our AI product team who is responsible for this product area have been notified as I said. I understand it's frustrating to wait, but no one from my team in the community can speed this up for you. Again, appreciate your patience. S2Y (@s2y) · 2026-02-13 Still have this problem. And I tried every what I can do. Chen Jiaxing (@rcfans) · 2026-02-14 Hi, I have the same problem and credit card is added. ``` responseHeaders: { 'cache-control': 'public, max-age=0, must-revalidate', 'content-encoding': 'br', 'content-type': 'application/json', date: 'Sat, 14 Feb 2026 06:12:44 GMT', server: 'Vercel', 'strict-transport-security': 'max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains; preload', 'transfer-encoding': 'chunked', vary: 'rsc, next-router-state-tree, next-router-prefetch, next-router-segment-prefetch', 'x-matched-path': '/v1/ai/language-model', 'x-vercel-cache': 'MISS', 'x-vercel-id': 'hnd1::cle1::lndrn-1771049564546-28485ea2431e' }, responseBody: '{"error":{"message":"Forbidden.","type":"access_denied"}}', ``` `"ai": "5.0.76"` Angel (@angelhodar) · 2026-02-15 Hey, I also have the same issue. In case it helps, I have been using https://v0nanobananapro.vercel.app/ all this time with the free hobby credits without any problem. The moment I added 10€ a few days ago, it started to show this popup message and I cant use the app anymore: **Team Access Required** To use Nano Banana Pro, you need to grant access to at least one Vercel team. This allows the playground to use your AI Gateway credits. Click the button below and select a team on the authorization screen. I suppose its related to the underlying 403 issue I am having by creating another api key and trying to use it via AI SDK v6. projectId: prj_I2obLncvKL83J3MYcEc8lN5PkGq1 project name: neuro-granada team: angelhodars-projects cwang (@cwang) · 2026-02-16 I’m not sure if this is the same issue. My error looks like this: `{"type":"error","errorText":"Forbidden."}`. It was working fine before and I haven’t changed any code. Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-16 This should be working for you now, JT! Thanks. Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-16 @cwang Looks similar - does it have the same 403 code? JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-16 · ♥ 1 Confirmed as fixed, thanks. cwang (@cwang) · 2026-02-17 No — the status code is 200.   JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-24 The 403 errors are back, what are you guys doing ? JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-24 It just started to happen again, today, same error, same call. Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-24 I'll pass to the team :slight_smile: However, your issue was specifically to the playground not gateway. JT (@justinian) · 2026-02-24 Correct, the issue is with the playground use but the error is the same and sharing the same back-end, last time this was working fine was yesterday. Pauline P. Narvas (@pawlean) · 2026-02-24 Cool - I'll close this topic as the discussion is going in different directions! As this has been happening a few times for you, can you raise a support ticket? vercel.com/help is the way to go. I wonder if it's account specific to you. Thanks!
