How to Claim GCP SLA Credits (Financial Credits) (Step-by-Step)

Google Cloud SLAs define a Monthly Uptime Percentage target (SLO) per service. If Google misses the target, you may be eligible for Financial Credits—but you generally have to submit a claim within the SLA deadline.

Key difference vs. other clouds: watch the deadline

Many Google Cloud SLAs require you to notify support within 30 days of becoming eligible for a credit. Always confirm the exact timing in the SLA for the specific product you’re claiming.

Step-by-step: file a GCP SLA credit claim

1. Confirm the incident: check the Google Cloud Status Dashboard for service/region impact and capture any incident reference.
2. Validate you actually breached the SLO: estimate monthly uptime from your monitoring (Cloud Monitoring uptime checks, error rates, latency).
3. Collect the required identifiers: Project ID (and billing account if relevant), plus service + region/zone.
4. Gather evidence: Cloud Logging excerpts, Monitoring graphs, screenshots, and exact time windows (timezone specified).
5. Open a billing support case: submit via Google Cloud Console support as a Billing issue and include "SLA Credit Request" in the subject.
6. File within the SLA window: default to 30 days unless the product SLA explicitly allows longer.
7. Verify the credit: approved credits appear as billing credits applied to future invoices.

What to include in the claim

• Project ID and (if asked) your billing account.
• Service + region/zone (and configuration details if the SLA depends on multi-zone design).
• Incident windows with explicit timezone (start/end).
• Evidence (logs/metrics) and a short impact description.

Copy/paste template (GCP)

Subject: SLA Credit Request – [Product] – [Region] – [Month Year]

Hello Google Cloud Support,
We are requesting an SLA financial credit for [Product] for the billing month [Month Year].

Project ID: [my-project-123]
Service / Region (or Zone): [Cloud Run] / [us-central1]
Incident windows (TZ):
- [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM] to [HH:MM] – [symptoms: 5xx/timeouts/unreachable]

Impact: [brief description of production impact]
Evidence: [Cloud Logging/Monitoring screenshots or excerpts attached]
Status Dashboard incident reference (if available): [incident name/ID]

Please review and apply the appropriate SLA credit.
Thank you,
[Name / Role]

Common denial reasons

• Late filing: missing the notification window (often 30 days).
• Non-qualifying configuration: claiming a multi-zone SLA while running single-zone.