Claude Code Rate Limit Reached? What It Means and What to Do

When Claude Code says you’ve hit a limit, you’ve used up the allowance on your plan, and requests are blocked until the reset time shown in the message.

You can wait for the reset, run /usage to check your limits, or run /rate-limit-options to see your other choices.

Not every “limit” error means the same thing, though. Some are about your plan, some are about your API key, and some have nothing to do with you.

This article explains how to tell them apart and what to do for each one.

Which limit error do you have?

Find your message in this table:

You’ve hit your session or weekly limit

These are the messages you’ll see on a Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan:

You've hit your session limit · resets 3:45pm
You've hit your weekly limit · resets Mon 12:00am
You've hit your Opus limit · resets 3:45pm

Here’s what you can do:

• Wait for the reset shown in the message
• Switch models with /model, but only for the Opus or Sonnet limit. Those limits only apply to that model family
• Buy more usage with /usage-credits. On Team and Enterprise plans, this sends a request to your admin
• Upgrade your plan for higher limits

Switching models doesn’t help with the session and weekly limits, because they’re shared across all models.

Your usage counts toward both the session and weekly allowances at the same time. So a heavy burst of work can use up your weekly allowance before the session window resets.

Let Claude Code continue automatically

You don’t have to come back and retype anything. If a limit stops Claude in the middle of a task, Claude Code waits in the open session and continues on its own after the reset:

Usage limit reached · limit resets 3:45pm
Continuing automatically at 3:45pm · Esc to cancel

Keep the session open, and press Esc if you want to cancel the wait. This is on by default in interactive sessions signed in with a claude.ai subscription, on version 2.1.234 or later.

To turn it off, change Continue automatically at usage limit in /config.

How to check your usage

Run this command inside Claude Code:

/usage

It shows your session cost, your plan limits and when they reset, and a breakdown of what’s using your allowance.

Claude Code can also warn you before you run out, with a message like this:

You've used 85% of your session limit · resets 3:45pm

Request rejected (429)

This error means you hit the rate limit on your API key, Amazon Bedrock project, or Google Cloud project:

API Error: Request rejected (429)

First, run /status and check which credential is active. A stray ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in your environment can send your requests through a low-tier API key instead of your subscription. If that’s the cause, remove it:

unset ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

If you do mean to use that key, check the limits in your provider’s console and request a higher tier. You can also run fewer subagents at the same time.

Server limits and 529 errors

These two errors aren’t related to your plan:

API Error: Server is temporarily limiting requests (not your usage limit)
API Error: Repeated 529 Overloaded errors. The API is at capacity

Claude Code already retries them automatically before showing you the message. Wait a few minutes and try again, and check status.claude.com if it continues.

For a 529 error, you can also run /model to switch to a different model, since capacity is tracked per model.

How to use less of your limit

The more context Claude has to process, the more tokens each message uses. These habits help the most:

• Run /clear between unrelated tasks, so old context isn’t re-sent with every message. Use /rename first if you want to find the session later
• Run /compact with instructions, such as /compact Focus on code samples and API usage
• Choose a smaller model with /model for simple tasks. Sonnet handles most coding work and costs less than Opus
• Lower the effort level with /effort when a task doesn’t need deep reasoning
• Check /context to see what’s using space, and disable MCP servers you aren’t using in /mcp

Conclusion

A session or weekly limit means waiting for the reset, buying usage credits, or upgrading. A 429 error usually points to your API key, so check /status first. Server limits and 529 errors aren’t about your account, so just try again shortly.

Limits can also be behind a slow session, so see why Claude Code is so slow if things feel sluggish.