This page describes some of the Cloud Billing issuesyou might encounter and provides guidance on how to resolve these issues.
If you're using Google Workspace, seeTroubleshoot issues with Google Workspace billing.
If you need help with your Cloud Billing account, Google Cloud offers freeCloud Billing Support to all customers. If you'd like to talk to a supportrepresentative about a Cloud Billing question or a billing-related issue, visit ourCloud Billing Support page for contact options.
Understand why you've been charged
This section describes a few common questions about when you're charged.
Charges that occur more than once a month
For accounts on an automatic payments billing cycle, if your accrued balanceexceeds your payment threshold, you are charged on that day. In addition, you'recharged on the first of the next month for any additional costs that you accrue.
For example, if your threshold is €500, you're charged every time thatyour costs reach €500. So if your costs total €1675 EUR in a month, you'recharged €500 three times (3 x 500 = 1500). In addition, you are chargedon the first of the next month for the outstanding balance of €175.
Learn more about automatic payments and threshold billing.
Charges after making a manual payment
If the billing cycles for your Cloud Billing account is set toautomatic payments, and you make a manual payment, you might still be chargedon your automatic billing cycle. Here are some possible reasons:
An automatic payment was already in progress when you initiated yourpayment: The automatic payment cycle is punctual, so if you made yourpayment when this process was underway, you might still be charged. Thisis most likely to happen if you make a manual payment when you're close toyour billing threshold, or at the end of the calendar month.
You reached the end of your billing cycle: After you make a manualpayment, your account returns to its usual billing cycle. You'll receivean automatic charge after your account costs reach your billing threshold,and on the first day of the month.
If the total of your charges and manual payment is greater than the amount youowe, the remaining balance is added as a credit to your account.
Unrecognized Google Cloud or Google Maps Platform charges
This section describes what you should do if you receive Google Cloud or Google Maps Platform charges that you don't recognize. Your contact optionsdepend on if you have a Cloud Billing account or not.
You have a Cloud Billing account
If the form of payment linked to your Cloud Billing account was charged forGoogle services that you don't recognize, or you received an unexpected invoicefor Google Cloud or Google Maps Platform services,contact Cloud Billing Support.
You don't have a Cloud Billing account
If a form of payment which you own has been charged by Google Cloud for Googleservices that you don't recognize, or you received an unexpected invoice forGoogle Cloud or Google Maps Platform services that you don't recognize, andyou don't own a Google Cloud or Cloud Billing account, submit aCloud Billing Support ticket through theUnknown Google Cloud Charge Inquiry form.
Dispute charges
The process to dispute unauthorized charges depends on your country.
UPI AutoPay in India
If you are a Unified Payment Interface (UPI) user in India and have an unauthorized charge from Google Cloud on your account, follow these steps:
- Cancel your UPI AutoPay mandate to prevent further unauthorized charges.
- Contact your bank to request a refund.
United States and other countries
Contact your bank to dispute unauthorized charges, which the bank treats as a chargeback.
In such cases, your bank notifies Google of the disputed charge, and then Google does the following:
- Sends you an email that your dispute was received.
- Reviews the details of the dispute and the documentation or evidence youprovided.
- Submits a decision to your bank, based on the results of that review. Thisinformation may agree or disagree with the dispute you filed.
Depending on the decision, you might see one of these changes on yourCloud Billing account:
If Google agrees with your disputed charge: The charge is corrected in yourCloud Billing account. You can see the correction in yourtransaction history,and you don't need to take any action.
If Google does not agree with the disputed charge, and the card-issuing bankdoes not resolve the chargeback in your favor: The charge won't bereturned to you. Your account will remain active.
If Google does not agree with your disputed charge, and the card-issuing bank resolves the dispute in your favor: Your account will have anoverdue balance. You can continue service on your account bymaking a manual payment.
Missing Cloud Billing transactions or documents
Cloud Billing documents and transactions are accessible in theGoogle Cloud console.
- Learn how to find your Cloud Billing documents,such as invoices, statements, and payment receipts.
- Learn how to view your transaction history.
If you can't find a specific document or transaction related to a Google Cloudservice or Google Maps Platform API even after accounting for reportingdelays, contact Cloud Billing Support for assistance.
Request a refund
If you have unused funds in your account, for example, if youmade an early payment and have funds left over, you might be eligible for a refund.
We don't offer refunds in these cases:
- You have credit left over in your billing account from a promotional code.
- You have an outstanding balance. If you're not sure whether this is the case,select a billing account and then click the Payment overview tab to see ifthere's an outstanding balance in your billing account.
You must be a Billing Administratoron the Cloud Billing account to request a refund.
To request a refund:
In the Google Cloud console, sign in to the Payment overview page for yourCloud Billing account.
Go to Payment overview
At the prompt, choose the Cloud Billing accountfor which you want to request a refund. The Billing Payment overviewpage opens for the selected billing account. If you have a credit on theaccount, you see the Request a refund button.
Click Request a refund.
Confirm the payment method to receive the refund. Refunds are issued to youroriginal payment method.
If your refund request is processed, your refund is credited back tothe payment method associated with the Cloud Billing account.
Viewing credits and adjustments
When Google needs to modify your account balance, you receive adjustments.Adjustments come in the form of credits and debits, which reduce youraccount balance or create additional invoices you must pay.
If your account is configured for monthly invoicing, you might also receivedocuments called memos when an adjustment is issued.
Credit memos can apply to existing invoices and reduce the amount you needto pay, or may remain on your account as unapplied to be applied to invoicesat your discretion.
- If you have unapplied payments or credits, they willappear above your invoices.
- To apply an unapplied payment or credit,contact our collections team and let them know how you want to apply it.
Debit memos act as additional invoices that you must pay, and aren'tassociated with a specific invoice.
Separately, you might also have promotional credits applied to your account.Promotional credits differ from adjustments and are applied to future usecharges.
Understand memos and adjustments
Credit and debit memos describe credit and debit adjustments that have beenissued to yourinvoiced Cloud Billing account.
- Credit memos describe adjustments that reduce the amount you need to payfor the month in which the credit adjustment is applied.
- Debit memos describe adjustments that increase the amount you must pay forthe month in which the debit adjustment is applied.
The month a memo is issued can be different from the month theadjustment is applied to your invoice. Credit memos can be applied to aprevious, current, or future invoice. For example, a credit memo could beissued in April that documents a credit adjustment applied to a March invoice.Similarly, a credit memo could be issued in May describing a creditadjustment to be applied to your June invoice.
When a credit memo is applied to an invoice, the invoice shows the creditmemo amount as an amount paid, reducing the outstanding balance owed onthe invoice.
The following table describes how credit and debit memos are reflected ineach page, report, or output.
| Page, report, or output | Description |
|---|---|
| Cloud Billing Documents page | Access documents issued for your Cloud Billing account, where you can view detailed information about individual debit and credit memos and the correlating adjustments.
|
| Cost table report | The cost table report gives you a detailed, tabular view of your costs by individual invoice. The report lists the individual adjustments so you can see the credit and debit memos applied on the invoice you are viewing. Depending on the type of billing correction issued, adjustment amounts might only appear in the footer of the report. The report doesn't include memos issued but not applied during the invoice period. Data in the cost table report can be downloaded to CSV. |
| Billing Reports | In billing reports, you can view and analyze your Google Cloud usage costs using many selectable settings and filters. To view billing modifications or adjustments in a billing report, set your Time range to Invoice month. In the report, modifications are labeled Adjustments and appear in the footer of the billing report. Adjustments are aggregated across all invoices issued for the invoice months you are viewing, so you can see the total of the credit and debit memos applied to all of the invoices issued during the invoice months. The adjustments shown correspond to the invoice, credit memo, and debit memo documents available in the Documents area of the Billing section in the Google Cloud console. The report doesn't include memos issued but not applied during the invoice period. If you want to analyze your Google Cloud costs after receiving SKU-level corrections, such as a retroactive price adjustment on a previously-billed service, view your costs using a Usage date Time range. When you view costs by usage date, any corrections or charges for late-monetized usage are accumulated, and you don't need to worry about any temporarily incorrect data. If you want view more detailed information on your corrections, configure your billing report as follows:
Data in the billing reports can be downloaded to CSV. |
| Cost breakdown report | When viewing the cost breakdown report by invoice month, adjustments are aggregated across all invoices issued for the invoice months you are viewing, so you can see the total of the credit and debit memos applied to all of the invoices issued during the invoice months. The report doesn't include memos issued but not applied during the invoice period. Data in the cost breakdown report can be downloaded to CSV. |
| Cloud Billing data export to BigQuery | In your exported data, when adjustments are issued, your export is appended with corrective data. These adjustments fall under one of two categories: billing modifications or corrections.
|
View invoices, adjustments, and memos applied to your account
Invoices, adjustments, and memos are viewed on theDocuments page in Cloud Billing.
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Documents page.
Go to the Documents page
At the prompt, choose the Cloud Billing accountyou want to view.
On the Documents page:
- You will see a table with all of the documents that have been issuedfor your Cloud Billing account.
- You can use filters and search tools to locate specific documents.
- For more information on the features in the documents page, seeGet a Cloud Billing document such as an invoice, statement, or receipt.
Look at the details of an invoice or memo
From the Documents table, click the row of the invoice or document for whichyou want to view details. A dialog opens, showing you document headerdetails including the invoice or memo number, amount, status, purchase ordernumber, account details, and more.
- In the Document Activity section, you can see information including theaddresses where the document was mailed and emailed, as well as invoicesor credit and debit memos that might apply to the document.
- In the Associated documents section, you can see a list of documents anddocument types that apply to the document you are viewing.
- To view an itemized list of all the charges on an invoice, use theCost table report.
View promotional credits applied to your account
Promotional credits are viewed on the Credits page in the Billing section ofthe Google Cloud console.
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Billing Credits page.
Go to the Billing Credits page
At the prompt, choose the Cloud Billing accountyou want to view.
The Credits page opens for the selected Cloud Billingaccount.
The Credits page is a tabular listing of your promotional credits.For each promotional credit, you will see the Credit name, the Statusof the credit (available, used, or expired), the Remaining value andOriginal value, the Type (recurring or one-time), the Credit IDthat appears on invoices, the Scope if the credit is restricted toparticular services or SKUs, and the Start date and End date.
Discounts are a different category of credits and aren't included on theCredits page. Discount credits include free tiers, sustained use discounts,committed use discounts, spending based discounts (contractual), subscriptions,and reseller margin.
To view the details of all the different types of credits that are applied toyour Cloud Billing account, both discounts and promotions, view theBilling Reports.
Resolving declined payments on self-serve (autopay) accounts
Sometimes payments are declined, and when they are, we might stop running yourservices until your payment can be processed. You can get your services runningagain in just a few steps.
Find out the reason for the decline. You can view declined paymentinformation for your billing account on theTransactions page. In your transaction history, you can see the date of the decline, theamount, and, if your bank shared it with us, the reason for the decline.(Keep in mind that Google doesn't decline payments; your bank or creditcard institution does.)
Contact your bank or credit card company. If you can't figure out whyyour payment was declined or if you can't solve the issue, contact your bankor credit card company. Give them the date and amount of the declinedpayment, and they should be able to tell you what the problem is and helpyou fix it.
Re-enable your form of payment. After you've contacted your bank andmade sure that the form of payment will work, here's how to re-enable it:
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Payment method page.
Go to the Payment method page
At the prompt, choose the Cloud Billing accountyou want to manage.
On the Payment method page, find the form of payment and check to makesure that all of the details are correct for this form of payment.
Below the information for the form of payment, click Fix.
Make a payment. After you've contacted your bank and made sure thatthe payment method will work, you canmake a manual payment.If you're using a bank account, the amount might be subject to a delay inposting.
Note the following:
- After you have re-enabled your formof payment, you might need to manually restart some services. For moreinformation, see Restarting Google Cloud Services.
- While your Cloud Billing account is inactive, yourBigQuery exportsare paused. When you re-enable your form of payment, your BigQueryexport isn't backfilled with data for the duration that your account wasinactive.
- Re-enabling your form of payment without making a manual payment willautomatically trigger a charge for your outstanding balance.It may take a few hours to process the payment. If thepayment isn't successful within one business day after you re-enabled yourform of payment, reactivate your account by making a manual payment or addinga new payment method. For more information, seeAdd, remove, or update a payment method or Make a Manual Payment.
- You can keep your services running by entering a backup credit card. We'll chargeyour backup card only if your primary form of payment is declined. For moreinformation, seeAdd, remove, or update a payment method.
- If your billing account remains invalid for a protracted period, someresources might be removed from the projects associated with your account. Forexample, if you use Google Cloud, your Compute Engineresources might be removed. Removed resources are not recoverable.
(Customers in India) Automatic payments declined due to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulations
Due to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulations, for newGoogle Cloud accounts, we might be unable to charge you automaticallyfor one of these reasons:
- Your card doesn't support automatic payments.
- Your usage costs are over ₹5,000, which is the limit that the RBI has set for automatic payments.
In these cases, you get this error message:Your card does not support automatic recurring payments.
To keep your services running, if your automatic payments are beingdeclined, we recommend one of these options:
- Make manual payments for your usage.You can also make manual payments to proactively add credit to your account.
- Try adding a different card.
- Consider working with a local reseller, who might be able to accept more formsof payment, or help you switch to invoiced billing. Find a list ofresellers on the Google partners page.
Changes to card information stored in Google
Starting October 1, 2022, due to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) card storage regulations,Google can no longer save your card details in the current format. Dependingon your card, you can authorize us to save your card details in a format thatcomplies with RBI regulations.
Learn more about authorizing Google to save your card details in a new format.
Other Cloud Billing issues
If you are stuck and you'd like to talk to a support representative about aCloud Billing question or a billing-related issue that you are having, visitCloud Billing Support for contact options.
