Earth Engine is introducing noncommercial quota tiers to safeguard shared compute resources and ensure reliable performance for everyone. All noncommercial projects will need to select a quota tier by April 27, 2026 or will use the Community Tier by default. Tier quotas will take effect for all projects (regardless of tier selection date) on April 27, 2026. Learn more.

Earth Engine Noncommercial Tiers

We're introducing new noncommercial tiers for Google Earth Engine to ensure a sustainable allocation of computational resources, so we can continue supporting high-impact projects globally.

As our community continues to grow, we want to ensure Earth Engine remains fast, fair, and free for noncommercial use. We remain steadfast in our commitment to offer Earth Engine free of charge for noncommercial and research use. We're introducing noncommercial quota tiers to safeguard shared compute resources and ensure reliable performance for Earth Engine users driving the world's most ambitious climate and sustainability solutions.

What's changing?

Starting April 27, 2026, all noncommercial Earth Engine projects will have a recurring monthly quota of free Earth Engine compute (EECU-hours). This quota is applied at the project-level and resets every month. We're introducing three new tiers to accommodate different levels of usage and impact.

Noncommercial tiers

Tier	Quota limit	Eligibility	Recommended use
Community Tier	150 EECU-hours	Available to all verified noncommercial projects. No additional requirements.	Intended for undergraduate students and other users with typical computation needs. This tier supports the majority of noncommercial Earth Engine usage.
Contributor Tier	1,000 EECU-hours	Available to all verified noncommercial projects. An active billing account is required, but you won't be charged for Google Earth Engine noncommercial usage. If you use this project for other Google Cloud services, you may be charged for that usage.	Intended for graduate students, nonprofits, and scientific researchers doing noncommercial work that contributes to science and impact.
Partner Tier	100,000 EECU-hours	Requires a separate application with details about your project and its impact. Approval may take up to several weeks. You can apply for this tier if your project relates to climate mitigation (carbon emissions reduction), adaptation (climate change resilience), or protection (nature and biodiversity protection, management, and restoration).	Intended for Nonprofits/NGOs, university research groups, government research groups, or other organizations with high computation requirements and clear evidence of high-impact sustainability work that influences environment policy and practices.

These EECU-hour quota limits are not hard cut-off values. Once you reach the limit for the month, you'll still be able to perform computation in restricted mode (your requests, EE Apps and tasks will still run), but you'll see reduced performance and throughput unless you get more quota.

Action required and key dates

Tier selection

You'll need to select a tier for your Earth Engine project(s) by April 27, 2026. If you don't, we'll configure your project to use the Community Tier by default; you can change it later at any time. New projects will be prompted to choose a tier during registration. For existing projects, you can select a tier through the Earth Engine Configuration page in the Cloud Console.

Earth Engine will begin enabling quotas for noncommercial projects starting April 27, 2026. This enablement may take several weeks, so your project may not have a quota applied until a later date.

Manage a project's tier

Change a project's tier

You can change your project's tier anytime on the configuration page in the Cloud Console. You'll need to have the correct permissions on the project:

Permissions needed	`earthengine.config.update`
Suggested roles	Earth Engine Resource Writer (`roles/earthengine.writer`)

If you change a project's tier, the new quota limit will apply immediately, and your current usage will remain unchanged. For example, if you switch from the Community Tier to the Contributor Tier, you'll see the quota limit increase from 150 to 1000 EECU-hours immediately.

Applications for the Partner Tier require manual review, and that may take several weeks to complete.

Apply for the Partner Tier

If you're part of a nonprofit, university, or government research group and need a lot more compute for high-impact sustainability work, you can apply for the Partner Tier. We'll review your application and get back to you with a decision within several weeks.

Renew and reverify

All noncommercial Earth Engine projects need to reverify their noncommercial status every year. You'll also need to reapply to keep projects in the Partner Tier.

Exceptions

Earth Engine Apps usage is tracked against the parent project of the EE App. In the event that the project runs out of noncommercial compute quota, all apps under that project will get slower.

Manage quota

Control EECU-hour usage

Consumption: Quotas apply to both Batch and Online EECU-hour consumption and reset every month. If you use up all your EECU-hours for the month period, you can still use Earth Engine in a lower-parallelism mode until your credits reset.
Allocation: Compute quota is allocated to a Cloud project and can't be transferred. Noncommercial EECU-hours are only for noncommercial projects and won't carry over if you switch your project to a commercial one.
Monitoring: Monitor your historical EECU consumption using Cloud Monitoring and Metrics Explorer.
Daily limits: Set a limit on the amount of EECU-time that your project is allowed to consume in a day by updating the EECU-time per day quota in the Cloud console. See the cost controls documentation for more details on how to access and update this quota.
Purchasing more compute: You can also pay for more compute by switching your project to commercial and selecting the Limited plan, or by creating a new commercial project. See the section on moving your workflows to a commercial project for details.

Restricted mode

Even if your project runs out of EECU-hour credits, you can still use Earth Engine, but it'll be in restricted mode until your credits refresh. Restricted mode limits your online and batch concurrency and reduces the number of compute workers allocated to you. You may not be able to run your workflows efficiently in restricted mode.

Get more quota

If your project is in the Community Tier, you can upgrade it to the Contributor tier. This grants the projects an extra 850 EECU-hours per month (for a total of 1,000 EECU-hours).
If your project is in the Contributor Tier, you can apply for the Partner Tier. If your application is accepted, your project will be granted 100,000 EECU-hours, minus any EECU-hours you've already used in that period.
You can use a commercial project with pay-as-you-go compute on the Limited plan. You can do this by:
- Switching a project from noncommercial to commercial. This is a permanent change (you can't switch it back). You can do this on the Earth Engine Configuration page in the Cloud Console.
- Creating a new commercial project and moving your workflow over.

Move workflows to a commercial project

If you create a new commercial project, you'll need to migrate your existing workflows. We recommend:

Running your code with the new project: You can do this by either selecting the new project in the Code Editor or by changing the project in your scripts when you call ee.Initialize.
```
# Pass the commercial project ID to ee.Initialize()
ee.Initialize(project='your-commercial-project-id')
```
Sharing your existing assets with the new project: To access your assets from the new project, you'll need to share them. You can do this from the Asset Manager by granting your new project's service account Viewer or Writer access to your assets.

FAQ

Background

Q: Why is Earth Engine making this change?
- Our goal is to ensure a sustainable allocation of computational resources, so we can continue supporting high-impact projects globally.
Q: What are the new tiers and what do they mean?
- There are three noncommercial tiers: Community, Contributor, and Partner. Each tier has a monthly compute quota limit and various eligibility requirements.
Q: Why does the Contributor Tier require a billing account?
- We use it for identity verification. You won't be charged for Earth Engine usage, but you may be charged for other Google Cloud services you use.
Q: What are the criteria for the Partner Tier?
- You must be a member of a nonprofit/NGO, university research group, or government research group with very heavy processing requirements. At this tier, partners must show evidence of high-impact sustainability work that influences environmental policy and practices, and demonstrate why they need the additional compute.

Timing

Q: How do I get an extension beyond April 27, 2026?
- If you don't select a tier by April 27, your project will be enrolled in the Community Tier by default. After April 27, you can select or change your project's tier any time through the configuration page.
Q: What happens if I don't select a tier by April 27, 2026?
- Your project will use the Community Tier by default. You can change it at any time on the configuration page.
Q: Can I change my tier? If so, when?
- Yes, you can change your tier at any time using the Earth Engine configuration page in the Cloud Console. This can be done before the migration date (April 27, 2026) or any time after.
Q: How long does it take to get a decision on a Partner Tier application?
- Decisions for the Partner Tier are typically reviewed and communicated within several business weeks.

Quota specifics

Q: What's an EECU-hour?
- An Earth Engine Compute Unit (EECU) is a measure of instantaneous processing power. We track computation by looking at EECU usage over time (e.g., EECU-hours).
Q: What happens when I run out of quota?
- Your project will enter the restricted mode with lower processing power until your quota resets for the monthly cycle. You can also change to a tier with more compute resources or switch to a commercial plan.
Q: Can I transfer my compute quota between different Cloud projects?
- No, compute quota is allocated to individual Cloud projects and cannot be transferred.
Q: I use tools other than the Code Editor (the Python API, XEE, and others). Does this quota apply to them?
- Yes, this quota applies to all Earth Engine computation performed on behalf your project.
Q: How are Earth Engine Apps affected by this change?
- Earth Engine Apps created by non-commercial projects are exempt from non-commercial eligibility confirmation, but may get slowed down with noncommercial tiers, when the owners' project runs out of their daily or monthly quota resources for their tier.
Q: How does this relate to existing uplifts?
- This is a separate quota on your project. If you have other quota limits that have been raised (e.g., storage, parallelism, etc.), they'll persist. The new compute quota still applies to the total amount of computation your project can complete per month.
Q: How do I know how much quota I've used?
- Use Cloud Monitoring to track your usage and limit for a project.
Q: How do I know how much quota I will use?
- Predicting compute time is notoriously difficult, but the Computation Benchmarks has some guidance and pointers to tools you can use to predict your compute footprint.
Q: Do my EECU-hours roll over to the next period?
- No, your quota resets at the beginning of each month, and any unused EECU-hours don't carry over to the following period. If you successfully enable a tier before April 27, 2026 your monthly quota period will begin on April 27, 2026.

Administration

Q: What if I have multiple projects?
- This system only applies to noncommercial projects. The quota and tiers are tracked at the project level, and you can have multiple noncommercial projects.
Q: Can I set a compute limit for a particular user?
- Not today, but it's a feature we're considering for the future.