## TL;DR
The billing account is suspended because a payment failed, and GCP starts throttling or shutting down resources on the linked projects. Update the payment method, settle the outstanding balance, and the account reactivates; then verify each project's services recovered.

## Use this when
- Projects report billing suspension or start throttling.
- The billing account status shows suspended in the console.
- You received payment-failure notices from Google.

## Not for this skill when
- Projects are fine but a budget alert fired. That is a budget problem.
- Services fail with quota errors on an active account. That is a quota problem.

## Steps
1. Open the billing account and check the payment method status and outstanding balance. Verify: you can see the failed payment and the amount owed.
2. Update the payment method to a valid one (or fix the existing one with your bank). Verify: the new method shows as active.
3. Pay the outstanding balance manually if it does not auto-retry. Verify: the balance reads zero.
4. Confirm the account status flips back to open. Verify: the suspension banner clears.
5. Check each project's services: some may need restarts after throttling (VMs stopped, APIs disabled). Verify: critical workloads are running and serving.

### Bank-decline variant
If the bank keeps declining, the card may be flagged for the large or international charge. Verify: the bank confirms the charge is allowed, then retry.

Compatibility: Google Cloud billing accounts, all project types.

## Why it happens
GCP bills in arrears and retries failed payments a few times, but after repeated failures it suspends the billing account to stop the exposure. Suspension cascades to every linked project because none of them can bill anymore.

## Edge cases / pitfalls
- Data loss is possible if throttling stops stateful workloads ungracefully. Check databases first.
- Free trial and promotional credits do not prevent suspension for unpaid balances outside the credit.
- Update the payment method before the retry window closes to avoid a second suspension cycle.
- Set up billing alerts and a backup payment method so one failed card cannot repeat this.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_F1B7lN6uEK1g-1UGpyeM5w