Usage limits
Codex weekly limit: when it resets and what happens when you hit it
Last reviewed August 2026.
Short answer: The Codex weekly limit is a fixed 7-day ceiling on top of the rolling 5-hour window — two clocks, both set by your ChatGPT tier. The weekly cap resets on your 7-day cycle, not on Monday. When you hit it, Codex stops new work until that cycle refills; waiting out the 5-hour window does not help. This page is the reset-and-what-happens guide; the Codex usage hub covers how to check usage and what counts.
Two clocks, not one
Codex meters usage with two clocks. The 5-hour rolling window governs short-term intensity: everything you do in a session draws from the same five-hour allowance, which refills continuously. The weekly limit governs the long game: a fixed ceiling across seven days that no amount of waiting-out-the-window will get around. You can be well within your 5-hour budget and still be blocked because the weekly cap is spent.
When it resets
| Clock | Reset | Waiting out the other clock |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly limit | Fixed 7-day cycle on your account | Waiting ~5 hours does not refill it |
| 5-hour window | Rolling after session start | Often clears the same day |
Whatever day your weekly cycle began is the day it refills — not Monday unless that happens to be your rollover. When you are capped, the CLI or account UI usually indicates which clock is blocking you and roughly when it frees up. Exact allowances vary by ChatGPT tier and change over time; as of August 2026 the two-clock shape is the stable part.
What happens when you hit it
When the weekly cap is spent, Codex stops serving new requests until the cycle resets. Waiting out the 5-hour window will not unblock you, because that is a separate clock. In practice you have three options: wait for the weekly reset, move up a ChatGPT tier to raise the ceiling, or reduce how much each remaining session spends so the little you have left goes further. The first costs time, the second costs money, and the third costs nothing but a few minutes of measurement.
Knowing which clock stopped you is the first step, because the fix is different for each: a spent 5-hour window clears on its own within hours, while a spent weekly cap needs one of those three moves.
Why you hit it by mid-week
The weekly cap is a token budget, and token-heavy work drains it out of proportion to the time spent. A single noisy afternoon — a build that dumps thousands of log lines into the context, an agent that re-reads the same files a dozen times, a long chain of tool calls — can eat a meaningful slice of the week, not just the day. Do that Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday’s “weekly limit reached” message stops feeling mysterious.
The trap is treating the weekly limit as a surprise rather than a forecast. It isn’t random — it’s the predictable result of your burn rate over seven days. If you can see your pace, you can see the wall coming and slow down before you hit it, instead of discovering it mid-task mid-week.
How to make it last
Because the weekly limit is about tokens, the way to stretch it is to spend fewer of them on the same work. Most waste falls into a few predictable buckets — verbose tool output, files re-read across turns, and extra agent context — and once you can see them, they’re fixable.
The free hypermile-audit CLI reads your local Codex records and prints a plain-English breakdown of where your week’s tokens actually went. Nothing is uploaded; it’s open source and runs on your machine. From there, Hypermile trims the noisy parts of each prompt before they reach the model, so the same work draws less from your weekly budget.
Run the audit below, then download Hypermile. For the full picture — how to check your Codex usage, both clocks, and the per-tier allowances — start with our Codex usage guide. If you split work across agents, the same weekly-cap arithmetic applies to Claude’s weekly limit and to Gemini CLI’s usage limits.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Codex weekly limit?
It is a fixed ceiling on how much Codex you can use over a 7-day cycle, set by your ChatGPT tier. It sits on top of the rolling 5-hour window, so both clocks apply at once. You can stay under the 5-hour limit every day and still exhaust the weekly cap.
When does the Codex weekly limit reset?
It resets on a fixed 7-day cycle tied to your account, not at the start of the calendar week. If your cycle rolls over on a Thursday, that's when your weekly allowance refills — regardless of how much of the 5-hour window you have left.
What happens when you hit the Codex weekly limit?
Codex stops serving new requests until the weekly cycle resets. Waiting out the 5-hour window does not help, because that is a separate clock. Your options are to wait for the weekly refill, move up a ChatGPT tier, or spend fewer tokens on the sessions you have left.
Why do I hit the Codex weekly limit before the 5-hour one?
The weekly cap and the 5-hour window are separate clocks. Token-heavy sessions — noisy logs, repeated file reads, long agent loops — draw down the weekly budget faster than the short window refills, so a heavy Monday and Tuesday can empty the week by Wednesday.
Can I raise my Codex weekly limit?
A higher ChatGPT tier carries a larger weekly cap, so upgrading raises the ceiling directly. Short of that, cutting the tokens each session spends — trimming noisy logs and repeated file reads — makes your existing weekly allowance stretch further.