# AssemblyAI: Major incident: Negative Balance Error

**Summary:** AssemblyAI reported a major billing incident: a small number of accounts received negative balances via the API, preventing transcription requests from completing. It ran from 2026-02-25 19:39 UTC to 2026-02-25 21:34 UTC (1 h 55 min). AssemblyAI attributed it to an unintentional error during its ongoing billing system migration, rolled out a fix, and confirmed resolution. _(machine-written, sol)_
- Kind: Major incident · Label: outage (model (Jev))
- Changed: 2026-02-25 19:39 UTC · Detected: 2026-10-17 18:22 UTC
- [Source: https://stspg.io/r2ccwb741yzt](https://stspg.io/r2ccwb741yzt)
- [Company: AssemblyAI](https://rewindex.com/company/assemblyai.md)
- Versions: before (none: first archived) → after incident\_version:2/g5s9r4bz7rs2@7cf9dd5cd3b4
- Change 1 of 1 for this incident

## What changed

**1. Added: Title**

```diff
+ Negative Balance Error
```

**2. Added: Impact**

```diff
+ major
```

**3. Added: Status**

```diff
+ resolved
```

**4. Added: Start time**

```diff
+ 2026-02-25 19:39 UTC
```

**5. Added: Resolved time**

```diff
+ 2026-02-25 21:34 UTC
```

**6. Added: Affected components**

```diff
+ APIs - Asynchronous API, APIs - LLM Gateway, APIs - Streaming API, Asynchronous API, Billing, LLM Gateway, Playground, Streaming API, Web - Playground
```

**7. Added: Update** (investigating) · 2026-02-25 19:39 UTC

```diff
+ We are currently investigating a billing issue affecting a small number of customer accounts. Impacted accounts are receiving a negative balance via the API, which is preventing transcription requests from completing and returning errors instead.  Our team is actively working to identify and correct all affected accounts. We apologize for the disruption this has caused to your workflows and will provide updates as the investigation progresses.
```

**8. Added: Update** (identified) · 2026-02-25 20:34 UTC

```diff
+ Our team has identified the root cause of the negative balance error currently affecting a small number of accounts. A fix is actively being rolled out and we will continue to monitor the situation closely until full resolution is confirmed.
```

**9. Added: Update** (resolved) · 2026-02-25 21:34 UTC

```diff
+ The negative balance error affecting a small number of accounts has been resolved. This issue was an unintentional error that occurred as a result of our ongoing billing system migration. Our team is continuing to monitor the situation to ensure full stability. We apologize for any disruption this caused and thank you for your patience.
```

## History of this incident

| When (UTC) | Change | Label |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2026-02-25 19:39 UTC | Major incident: Negative Balance Error (this change) | outage |

All AssemblyAI changes: [timeline](https://rewindex.com/company/assemblyai/changes.md)
_Diff excerpts are shown on normalized text: dates, counters and tokens appear as ‹date›, ‹count›, ‹tok›; noise-only edits are hidden. Rewindex shows the changed passages, not a copy of the page._


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Canonical: https://rewindex.com/change/i6c9055cb85d30d · Markdown: https://rewindex.com/change/i6c9055cb85d30d.md · JSON: https://rewindex.com/api/v1/changes/i6c9055cb85d30d · Generated 2026-10-18T02:28:16.664Z