GitHub-hosted Actions blocked account-wide — "recent account payments have failed" despite no failed payment and budget at 33%

[Swingscience]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Other

Discussion Details

Every GitHub-hosted Actions job on my account is refused before any step runs, across all of my repositories, with:

"The job was not started because recent account payments have failed or your spending limit needs to be increased. Please check the 'Billing & plans' section in your settings."

The problem is that both stated causes are false, verified in my own Billing & licensing pages:

• Spending limit: my Actions budget is at 33% utilization — nowhere near capped.
• Payments: payment history shows only successful charges — no failed payment, and no past-due / "Pay now" item anywhere.
• The block is identical across two different payment methods (I switched from PayPal to a card and back while troubleshooting), so the payment instrument is not the trigger.
• Self-hosted runners on the same account work fine — only GitHub-hosted jobs are refused.

This looks like a stale account-level hosted-runner restriction that never cleared after a successful payment. It has blocked all of my CI (and my release pipeline) for 3+ days.

I have an open Support ticket (#4858093) with six updates from me and no response yet. Could a staff member please help flag this to the Billing/Actions team, or confirm what internal flag is still set? Raising the budget is not the fix — it is at 33%.

Thanks.

[github-actions[bot]]

💬 Your Product Feedback Has Been Submitted 🎉

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us! Your feedback is invaluable as we build a better GitHub experience for all our users.

Here's what you can expect moving forward ⏩

• Your input will be carefully reviewed and cataloged by members of our product teams. 
  • Due to the high volume of submissions, we may not always be able to provide individual responses.
  • Rest assured, your feedback will help chart our course for product improvements.
• Other users may engage with your post, sharing their own perspectives or experiences. 
• GitHub staff may reach out for further clarification or insight. 
  • We may 'Answer' your discussion if there is a current solution, workaround, or roadmap/changelog post related to the feedback.

Where to look to see what's shipping 👀

• Read the Changelog for real-time updates on the latest GitHub features, enhancements, and calls for feedback.
• Explore our Product Roadmap, which details upcoming major releases and initiatives.

What you can do in the meantime 💻

• Upvote and comment on other user feedback Discussions that resonate with you.
• Add more information at any point! Useful details include: use cases, relevant labels, desired outcomes, and any accompanying screenshots.

As a member of the GitHub community, your participation is essential. While we can't promise that every suggestion will be implemented, we want to emphasize that your feedback is instrumental in guiding our decisions and priorities.

Thank you once again for your contribution to making GitHub even better! We're grateful for your ongoing support and collaboration in shaping the future of our platform. ⭐

[AICincy]

I’m seeing a related account-level GitHub Actions block on my public repository, AICincy/HCJC. GitHub’s own run annotations state:

The job was not started because your account is locked due to a billing issue.

The last successful sweep completed on October 15, 2026, at 20:10:10 UTC. The first failure occurred at 21:03:22 UTC and ended approximately two seconds later. The same billing-lock annotation appears on three independent workflows in the repository: sweep, staleness-watchdog, and clerk-pra-packets. The affected jobs show runner_id=0, an empty runner name, and no executed steps.

Relevant runs:

• First failed sweep: https://github.com/AICincy/HCJC/actions/runs/38806890796
• Subsequent failed sweep: https://github.com/AICincy/HCJC/actions/runs/38944268952
• Staleness watchdog: https://github.com/AICincy/HCJC/actions/runs/38919708048
• Clerk packets: https://github.com/AICincy/HCJC/actions/runs/38909665123

I have not yet established which underlying billing condition triggered the lock. I do not want to assume that a payment failed or that the spending limit was exhausted. I’m seeking clarification on whether this annotation can result from a failed authorization hold, a past-due invoice or payment issue, a budget or quota restriction, or an account-level billing flag that has not cleared.

Has anyone encountered this exact account-lock annotation, and did GitHub identify the specific condition and corrective action? I’m pursuing an account-level billing review rather than changing workflow code that never executes.

[slyyr]

Given that the spending limit hasn't been reached and the payment history shows successful charges, I wouldn't increase the budget without further evidence.

First, check the account's Billing & plans page for any outstanding balance, account restriction, or payment warning that might not be obvious from the recent transaction history.

Next, compare the failure across repositories and confirm whether the same account-level message appears for every GitHub-hosted runner job.

Since self-hosted runners reportedly still work, the problem may involve an account-level restriction affecting GitHub-hosted runners rather than the workflow YAML.

If the billing page shows no actionable issue, GitHub Support will likely need to inspect the account restriction. Include the existing support-ticket reference and relevant run IDs rather than opening duplicate tickets.

If this helps narrow down the cause, please mark this reply as the answer so other developers facing the same account restriction can find the troubleshooting steps!