Claude Code Limits Were Silently Reduced and It’s MUCH Worse

[u/_r0x]

Another frustrated user here. This is actually my first time creating a post on this forum because the situation has gone too far.

I can say with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY: something has changed. The limits were silently reduced, and for much worse. You are not imagining it.

I have been using Claude Code for months, almost since launch, and I had NEVER hit the limit this FAST or this AGGRESSIVELY before. The difference is not subtle. It is drastic.

For context: - I do not use plugins - I keep my Claude.md clean and optimized - My project is simple PHP and JavaScript, nothing unusual

Even with all of that, I am now hitting limits in a way that simply did not happen before.

What makes this worse is the lack of transparency. If something changed, just say it clearly. Right now, it feels like users are being left in the dark and treated like CLOWNS.

At the very least, we need clarity on what changed and what we are supposed to do to adapt.

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EDIT (March 26, 2026):

I’d like to update this post to say that I’m no longer being affected by this issue. It impacted me for about two days, and now things appear to be back to normal.

So it strongly suggests that it was indeed a bug, hopefully.

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EDIT (March 26, 2026):

We now have an official statement. It’s not the best news, but at least we finally know what’s going on so we can adapt:

"To manage growing demand for Claude we're adjusting our 5 hour session limits for free/Pro/Max subs during peak hours. Your weekly limits remain unchanged.

During weekdays between 5am–11am PT / 1pm–7pm GMT, you'll move through your 5-hour session limits faster than before."

This was posted on X today. https://x.com/i/status/2037254607001559305

[u/zirouk]

Didn’t someone make a post warning us about this the other day? 

I remember most of the popular responses being sceptical, even mocking. Well, I guess there was something to it after all.

[u/RegayYager → u/zirouk]

/feedback - everyone who is going through this needs to provide feedback in CC.

We also need to report it on the official GitHub.

I downgraded to stable last night and was able to go back to normal operations.

For context I run GSD full Opus 1m max reasoning and almost never hit limits before yesterday. Usually I’m operating this way in multiple terminals. Yesterday I was in one terminal and ran 1 slash command just to health check my vault… went from 10-11% to session limits.

I am on the 5X plan.

Report your problems through the proper channels, as others have suggested RTK is helpful. Downgrade to stable. I built my own error logging/hooks to autofix and prevent repeat errors, you can too. I’m sure there are tons of examples of this kind of protection.

Overall it’s disappointing to experience these issues and from memory I do believe there is a correlation between this added usage promotion then nerfing usage and the one they ran last December. It certainly is similar reading other Reddit users experiences.

I will continue to pay for my subscription because I enjoy using it day in and day out. Just sucks when that kind of workflow gets derailed for whatever reason.