GitHub · REST API rate limits · Checked October 24, 2026

GitHub: "API rate limit exceeded"

GitHub counts your requests and stops answering them for a while once a limit is used up. Nothing is wrong with the token or its permissions; waiting is the fix. From GitHub's Rate limits for the REST API: over the primary limit, the answer is 403 or 429 and the x-ratelimit-remaining header is 0, and you should not try again before the time in x-ratelimit-reset. Over a secondary limit, the answer is also 403 or 429, and its message says so.

The whole answer

Without a token (from a public report; GitHub names the IP address it saw):

HTTP 403

API rate limit exceeded for [IP address]. (But here's the good news: Authenticated requests get a higher rate limit. Check out the documentation for more details.)

With a token, GitHub names the account instead: "API rate limit exceeded for user ID [number]." (as in this report). A secondary limit reads "You have exceeded a secondary rate limit. Please wait a few minutes before you try again." (as in this and this report).

The headers tell you where you stand. To read them without using up a request (GitHub does not count calls to /rate_limit against the primary limit):

curl -i -H "Authorization: Bearer your-token" https://api.github.com/rate_limit

x-ratelimit-limit: how many requests an hour you get.
x-ratelimit-remaining: how many are left. 0 means the primary limit is used up.
x-ratelimit-reset: when it opens again, in UTC epoch seconds.
x-ratelimit-resource: which limit the request counted against, for example core or search.

Leave out the Authorization line to see the limit without a token. For GitHub Enterprise Server, call your server's API address instead of api.github.com.

Which limit

From GitHub's Rate limits for the REST API:

Without a token: 60 an hour, counted per IP address, not per person or program. Everyone behind the same office or VPN address shares the 60.
With a token: 5,000 an hour for your account. Every personal access token of yours, and every app acting for you, counts toward the same 5,000. An app of a GitHub Enterprise Cloud organization gets 15,000, but what it uses also comes out of your 5,000: GitHub's example is an app that made 10,000 requests for you, after which your tokens have nothing left.
Search has a limit of its own: 30 requests a minute with a token, 10 without (Search). GraphQL has its own too: 5,000 points an hour per user (GraphQL rate limits). There, a used-up limit still answers 200, with an error and x-ratelimit-remaining 0.
Secondary limits are on bursts: no more than 100 requests at the same time, no more than 900 points a minute on one REST endpoint, and in general no more than 80 requests a minute and 500 an hour that create content. GitHub may change them without notice, there is no way to check where you stand, and they can also apply for reasons GitHub does not disclose.

When to try again

GitHub's troubleshooting page gives the order:

If the answer has a retry-after header, wait that many seconds.
If x-ratelimit-remaining is 0, wait until the time in x-ratelimit-reset.
Otherwise wait at least a minute. If a secondary limit keeps refusing, wait longer each time, and stop after a few tries.

Do not keep sending requests while refused: GitHub warns that this may get the integration banned.

So it does not happen again

No token yet: add one. The limit goes from 60 an hour to 5,000.
A token already: a new token does not help, because the limit belongs to your account. Look for what else uses it: another tool, a script or a CI job with one of your tokens.
Unchanged answers: a request that sends the etag of the last answer gets 304 when nothing changed, and from GitHub's best practices, a 304 does not count against the primary limit when the request was made with a token.
Bursts: send requests one after another instead of at the same time, and wait at least a second between changes.

In IntelliJ IDEA: GitHub's message, or "User authorization failed"

How the GitHub support built into IntelliJ IDEA takes a refused request, in its source (checked October 30, 2026; IntelliJ IDEA: GithubApiRequestExecutor.kt, GithubApiRequest.kt, GHAPIExceptionUtil.kt, GHSelectorErrorStatusPresenter.kt):

A 403 that says "API rate limit exceeded" (or a 401 or 402 that does) is taken as a rate limit, and IntelliJ IDEA shows GitHub's message as it is, so you see the words above.
A 403 from a secondary limit is taken as a refused login. IntelliJ IDEA tells a rate limit apart by looking for the words "API rate limit exceeded" in the message, and "You have exceeded a secondary rate limit…" does not contain them. When the Pull Requests tool window connects, this reads "Could not connect to repository … with account …" and "User authorization failed", with Log in again…. Nothing is wrong with the token: wait, as above (the same lines for a token GitHub refuses).
A 429, from either limit, is shown as an error with GitHub's message.
GraphQL: a used-up limit answers 200 with an error, and IntelliJ IDEA shows the error's message.
The request code reads x-ratelimit-remaining and x-ratelimit-resource only for its usage statistics; it does not read x-ratelimit-reset or retry-after. To see when the limit opens again, use the /rate_limit call above.

GitHub pull requests in IntelliJ IDEA

Pull Request Inbox for GitHub, a plugin by Lesstep for JetBrains IDEs 2024.1 or later, tells a rate limit apart from a refused token: it says that GitHub's limit was reached and the time it opens again, from x-ratelimit-reset or retry-after. Without a token, it says that the 60 an hour are used up and offers its settings, where a token raises the limit to 5,000; reading stays free. Its list reloads every 5 minutes while it is open (a setting turns this off); each reload sends the etag of the last answer, so with a token an unchanged list costs nothing, and reviewers are read again only for pull requests that changed. When an automatic reload is refused, the list on screen stays. Review threads and resolving them go through GraphQL; from version 1.0.42, a used-up limit there is told the same way, with the time it opens again (before, it showed the words GitHub sent after "GitHub said:"). The review inbox, diffs and conversations are free; approving, commenting and merging are Pro (US$1.50 a month, with a 30-day trial).

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