GitHub Actions: "The job was not started because recent account payments have failed or your spending limit needs to be increased"
GitHub gave the job no runner because of the billing of the account that owns the repository. Nothing in your workflow ran, and re-running changes nothing until the billing side changes. The message names two causes; GitHub's documentation describes three.
What the job looks like
The full annotation, from a public report on November 2, 2026 (runs-on: ubuntu-latest, a private repository at the time):
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 job fails within seconds (created at 07:22:51 UTC, completed at 07:22:55), with no runner name, runner id 0 and no steps.
- There is no log: downloading it returns 404. The annotation is the only explanation.
- In that report both of the repository's workflows failed the same way, and re-running gave the same result (MR_SIAVASH_HUB_AI #66).
- The settings section the message names is now called Billing & Licensing.
Why: three causes
- The included usage is used up and there is no payment method. Jobs in private repositories draw from a monthly amount included in the plan, now given in dollars: $12 on GitHub Free and Free for organizations, $18 on Pro and Team, $300 on Enterprise Cloud. On Free that is about 2,000 minutes of a standard Linux runner ($0.006 a minute), 1,200 of Windows ($0.010) or 190 of macOS ($0.062). Without a valid payment method, GitHub blocks usage once that amount is used. One project used its 2,000 minutes in two days, with five agents pushing in parallel and every push running the full suite twice (Geyser-Genomics #161).
- A budget that stops usage is spent. With a payment method, a budget with Stop usage when budget limit is reached blocks GitHub-hosted runners once it is used, and any budget that covers Actions counts: one for the product, one for a single runner type, one for a repository. In the report above, the owner's Budgets and alerts page showed "$0.00 / $0.00 spent" for Actions, and the owner reported never having made a payment.
- The account is locked. A declined payment locks the account's paid features. GitHub also says a failed authorization hold, when you sign up for Copilot or raise a budget, can lock a personal account's billing and block GitHub Actions, even on GitHub Free and after the payment method is removed.
What to do
Usage is charged to the repository's owner, not to the person who started the run. In an organization, only an organization owner or a billing manager can change it; anyone else can only pass the annotation on.
- See what was used: Settings > Billing & Licensing > Usage (for an organization, in the organization's settings). The Budgets and alerts page lists each budget with what was spent against it.
- Wait: the included usage resets at the start of each billing cycle.
- Add a payment method, raise the budget, or clear Stop usage when budget limit is reached. From then on, use beyond the included amount is billed.
- If the account is locked: update the payment method under Billing & Licensing > Payment information. GitHub says the account unlocks once a payment goes through, which can take up to 24 hours. If nothing there shows a problem, GitHub's documentation says to ask GitHub Support to review the billing lock.
- Make the repository public: standard GitHub-hosted runners are free there and do not draw from the included usage. Everything in its history becomes public, so check it for secrets first. This helps with the first two causes; a locked account can block Actions anyway.
- Use a self-hosted runner: it is free and does not draw from the included usage. GitHub's budget documentation speaks of blocking GitHub-hosted runners; it does not say what a locked account does to self-hosted ones.
- Then re-run: on the run's page, Re-run jobs > Re-run failed jobs, or
gh run rerun <run-id> --failed.
Keep it from coming back
- Included usage alerts send an email at 90% and 100% of the included usage. They are turned on or off on the Budgets and alerts page.
- A macOS minute costs about ten Linux minutes ($0.062 against $0.006), so a macOS job in every pull request uses the amount fastest.
- Cut duplicate runs. The project above set out to halve its minutes per pull request: push runs only on the default branch, a newer push cancels the older run of the same pull request, and draft pull requests skip the heavy jobs (Geyser-Genomics #161).
on:
push:
branches: [main]
pull_request:
types: [opened, synchronize, reopened, ready_for_review]
concurrency:
group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.event.pull_request.number || github.ref }}
cancel-in-progress: ${{ github.event_name == 'pull_request' }}
jobs:
e2e:
if: ${{ !github.event.pull_request.draft }}
Telling it apart
Other jobs that never ran also have no runner and no steps. This one fails within seconds; a job that no hosted runner took is cancelled after about 15 minutes ("The job was not acquired by Runner of type hosted"). If a tool decides from the jobs API, note that runner_name can be an empty string rather than null (conveyor #510), and read the annotation (a job's id is also its check run id):
gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/actions/jobs/JOB_ID --jq '{runner_id, runner_name, steps: (.steps | length)}'
gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/check-runs/JOB_ID/annotations --jq '.[].message'
See jobs GitHub refused to start from IntelliJ IDEA
Pipeline Inbox for GitHub Actions Workflows, a plugin by Lesstep for JetBrains IDEs 2024.1 or later, lists the runs of all your repositories in an IDE tool window, with their jobs and steps, so a failed job with no steps stands out next to the ones that ran, and your current branch's runs are in the status bar. Reading is free; re-running failed jobs, cancelling, running workflows and reviewing deployments are Pro (US$1.50 a month, with a 30-day trial).
GitHub and GitHub Actions are trademarks of GitHub, Inc.; IntelliJ IDEA is a trademark of JetBrains s.r.o. This page is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by GitHub, Inc. or JetBrains. Prices and amounts are from GitHub's billing documentation on November 3, 2026.
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