GitLab.com will change how rate limits work starting October 19 2026. From that date the platform will use subscription‑tier‑specific limits rather than a single set of caps for all users. The key points are:
- **Free tier**: unauthenticated requests remain capped at 60 per hour per IP. Signed‑in Free users receive a 5,000‑request‑per‑hour allowance. - **Premium tier**: authenticated users get 15,000 requests per hour; the new limits begin in January 2027. - **Ultimate tier**: authenticated users get 25,000 requests per hour; those limits also begin in January 2027. - **Preview windows**: before the permanent change, GitLab will run two brownout windows on October 7 and October 14 (15:00‑19:00 UTC) where the new limits are temporarily active so users can see how their workloads behave. - **Authentication impact**: invoking a personal access token, OAuth token, or CI/CD job token moves a request off the anonymous 60‑per‑hour limit onto the user’s plan limit, which is substantially higher. Without credentials, any request—even from a paid account—is treated as unauthenticated and counted against the 60‑per‑hour cap. - **What does not change**: GitLab Self‑Managed and GitLab Dedicated instances retain their own operator‑controlled limits. Users can always access and export their data and repositories. The UI, git operations, and normal CI/CD workflows for most users remain unchanged. - **Upgrade path**: teams that consistently approach their limits can upgrade to Premium or Ultimate for higher ceilings. GitLab also plans a future option to purchase additional capacity above the standard plan limits.
These details come from GitLab’s official blog post announcing the change and the accompanying rate‑limits documentation, which lists the sustained and burst limits per plan and explains the 429 response mechanism, Retry‑After headers, and RateLimit‑* headers that clients can use to monitor usage.
Users whose integrations cannot authenticate are encouraged to contact GitLab at limits@gitlab.com for special‑case considerations such as public status badges.