Is Claude Code Down? How to Check Status and What to Do

Check Claude Code status at status.claude.com, Anthropic's official status page. As of April 2026, Anthropic reports approximately 99.2% uptime for Claude Code, though brief outages affecting authentication and rate limiting have occurred during high-demand periods.

How to Check Claude Code Status

Anthropic's official status page at status.claude.com provides real-time monitoring for Claude Code, the Claude API, and claude.ai. The page displays current operational status, active incidents, and a 90-day history of uptime for each service component.

The status page breaks down Claude's infrastructure into separate components: API availability, authentication services, web interface, and Claude Code CLI. An outage in one component does not necessarily affect the others. For example, the Claude API may be fully operational while the OAuth authentication service experiences issues.

You can subscribe to status updates via email or RSS from the status page. This is useful for teams that rely on Claude Code in production workflows and need immediate notification when incidents occur.

Status Monitoring Tools Compared

Multiple tools can help you determine whether Claude Code is experiencing an outage.

Community-reported tools like Downdetector often detect outages before the official status page is updated. However, Downdetector reports can be noisy — a spike in reports may reflect a localized issue rather than a global outage. Always cross-reference with the official status page.

Recent Incidents

Claude Code has experienced several notable incidents in early 2026. As reported by GV Wire, the service experienced authentication disruptions during high-traffic periods in early April 2026.

Common incident patterns include:

• Authentication outages: OAuth login fails but existing authenticated sessions continue to work
• Rate limiting incidents: The service remains operational but throttles requests more aggressively than normal
• Degraded performance: Response times increase significantly but the service does not go fully offline

Full outages where Claude Code becomes completely unavailable to all users are rare. Most incidents affect specific components (authentication, a particular region, or a specific API endpoint) rather than the entire service.

What to Do When Claude Code Is Down

When Claude Code is confirmed down via the status page, your response depends on the type of outage and your authentication method.

If it is an OAuth outage: Try API key authentication instead. Set the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable and restart Claude Code. API key auth uses a different code path that sometimes remains functional during OAuth-specific incidents. See our login troubleshooting guide for details.

If it is a full API outage: No workaround will restore Claude Code functionality until Anthropic resolves the incident. Use this time to work on tasks that do not require AI assistance, review code manually, or switch to an alternative tool temporarily.

If the status page shows no issues but Claude Code is not working for you: The problem is likely local. Check your internet connection, DNS resolution, and VPN status. See our OAuth error 500 fix guide for local troubleshooting steps.

Server-Side vs Local Issues

Distinguishing between a Claude Code outage and a local issue on your machine saves troubleshooting time. Use this decision process to identify the root cause quickly.

It is probably server-side if:

• status.claude.com shows an active incident
• Downdetector shows a spike in reports from multiple locations
• Other Claude services (claude.ai, the API) are also affected
• The issue started abruptly and affects all your projects equally

It is probably local if:

• status.claude.com shows all systems operational
• Other internet services work normally on your machine
• The issue only affects one machine or network
• You recently changed VPN, DNS, or firewall settings

For local issues, work through the troubleshooting steps in our Claude Code guide before assuming a server-side problem.

Limitations and Tradeoffs

Status pages, including Anthropic's, sometimes lag behind actual outage start times. Community tools like Downdetector may show reports 5-15 minutes before the official status page is updated. Do not rely solely on the official page for real-time detection.

The 99.2% uptime figure translates to roughly 70 hours of potential downtime per year. For teams running production workflows on Claude Code, this means having a contingency plan is not optional. Consider maintaining API key access as a backup even if you normally use OAuth.

When Claude Code is unavailable, there is no way to access your conversation history or resume in-progress tasks. Work is not lost, but it cannot be continued until the service is restored. Designing workflows with checkpoints and manual save points reduces the impact of unexpected downtime.

Related Guides

• Claude Code: Complete Guide
• Claude Code Login Not Working: How to Fix
• Fix Claude Code OAuth Error 500

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check if Claude Code is down?

Visit status.claude.com for Anthropic's official status page. It shows real-time status for Claude Code, the Claude API, and claude.ai. You can also check Downdetector for community-reported outages or StatusGator for aggregated monitoring across multiple AI services.

How often does Claude Code go down?

Anthropic reports approximately 99.2% uptime for Claude Code as of early 2026. Most incidents are brief, lasting 15 to 60 minutes, and affect authentication or rate limiting rather than complete service unavailability. Major outages affecting all users are rare but have occurred during high-demand periods.

What should I do when Claude Code is unavailable?

First confirm the outage at status.claude.com. If it is a server-side issue, wait for resolution — most incidents resolve within an hour. If you need to keep working, switch to API key authentication which sometimes remains functional during OAuth outages, or use an alternative AI coding tool temporarily.