Is Claude Down? Developer's Guide to Handling Anthropic API Outages (2026)

TLDR: Check if Anthropic's Claude API is down at apistatuscheck.com/api/anthropic. This guide covers how to verify Claude outages, common causes of Anthropic API downtime, and how to implement fallback providers so your AI features stay running.

TLDR: When Claude API goes down, check status.anthropic.com and apistatuscheck.com/api/claude first. Build resilient AI apps with multi-model fallbacks to OpenAI or local models, implement exponential backoff retries, and use streaming responses to handle degraded performance gracefully.

Claude just stopped responding. Your AI features are returning errors, completions are timing out, and users are staring at loading spinners. Whether you're using Claude through the API, the web interface, or a third-party integration, you need to know if it's down — and what to do about it.

With Claude powering everything from coding assistants to enterprise workflows, an Anthropic outage can cascade through your entire product. Here's how to confirm it, handle it, and architect your AI features so the next one doesn't matter.

Is Claude Actually Down Right Now?

Before you start debugging your prompts, confirm it's an Anthropic issue:

1. API Status Check — Anthropic — Independent monitoring with response time history
2. Is Claude Down? — Quick status check with 24h timeline
3. Anthropic Official Status — From Anthropic directly
4. Downdetector — Claude — Community-reported outages

Claude Web App vs API: They Can Fail Independently

This catches many people off guard:

Service	What It Is	Can Fail Separately?
claude.ai	Consumer web/mobile app	✅ Yes
API (api.anthropic.com)	Developer API endpoints	✅ Yes
Claude for Enterprise	Workspace/team features	✅ Yes
Claude in Amazon Bedrock	AWS-hosted Claude	✅ Different infra entirely
Claude in Google Vertex AI	GCP-hosted Claude	✅ Different infra entirely

Critical for developers: If claude.ai is down but you're using the API, you might be fine. And if you're using Claude through Bedrock or Vertex AI, Anthropic's direct infrastructure status is irrelevant — check AWS/GCP status instead.

Common Claude API Error Codes

Error	Meaning	Action
429	Rate limited	Retry with backoff (check headers for reset time)
500	Internal error	Retry, likely transient
502 / 503	Service unavailable	Outage — switch to fallback
529	Overloaded	Anthropic is at capacity — back off significantly
api_error	Generic API failure	Check status page, retry
overloaded_error	Model overloaded	Try a different model or wait
authentication_error	Invalid API key	Not an outage — check your key

The 529 is Claude-specific. Unlike most APIs that use 503 for overload, Anthropic returns 529 when Claude is at capacity. This typically happens during peak hours or after a model launch, not during full outages.

Claude via Cloud Providers: Your Resilience Superpower

The biggest architectural win: access Claude through multiple providers.

Amazon Bedrock

import boto3

bedrock = boto3.client('bedrock-runtime', region_name='us-east-1')

def claude_via_bedrock(prompt: str) -> str:
    response = bedrock.invoke_model(
        modelId='anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-20250514-v1:0',
        body=json.dumps({
            "anthropic_version": "bedrock-2023-05-31",
            "max_tokens": 4096,
            "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": prompt}]
        })
    )
    result = json.loads(response['body'].read())
    return result['content'][0]['text']

Google Vertex AI

from anthropic import AnthropicVertex

client = AnthropicVertex(region="us-east5", project_id="your-project")

def claude_via_vertex(prompt: str) -> str:
    message = client.messages.create(
        model="claude-sonnet-4@20250514",
        max_tokens=4096,
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": prompt}]
    )
    return message.content[0].text

The Multi-Provider Pattern

async def resilient_claude(prompt: str) -> str:
    """Try Claude through all available providers."""
    
    providers = [
        ("Anthropic Direct", claude_direct),
        ("AWS Bedrock", claude_via_bedrock),
        ("Google Vertex", claude_via_vertex),
    ]
    
    for name, provider_fn in providers:
        try:
            result = await provider_fn(prompt)
            if name != "Anthropic Direct":
                print(f"Served via {name} (primary unavailable)")
            return result
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"{name} failed: {e}")
            continue
    
    raise RuntimeError("Claude unavailable through all providers")

Why this is powerful: Anthropic's direct API, AWS Bedrock, and Google Vertex AI are separate infrastructure. The chance of all three being down simultaneously is extremely low.

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Monitoring Claude Proactively

Track Response Quality, Not Just Availability

Claude being "up" with degraded performance is worse than being fully down — you might serve bad responses:

import time

async def monitored_complete(prompt: str) -> dict:
    start = time.time()
    
    try:
        response = await client.messages.create(
            model="claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
            max_tokens=4096,
            messages=[{"role": "user", "content": prompt}]
        )
        
        duration = time.time() - start
        
        # Track metrics
        metrics.record('claude.latency_ms', duration * 1000)
        metrics.record('claude.input_tokens', response.usage.input_tokens)
        metrics.record('claude.output_tokens', response.usage.output_tokens)
        metrics.increment('claude.success')
        
        # Alert on unusually short responses (might indicate degraded quality)
        if response.usage.output_tokens < 10 and len(prompt) > 100:
            metrics.increment('claude.suspicious_short_response')
        
        return {
            'text': response.content[0].text,
            'latency_ms': duration * 1000,
            'model': response.model,
            'provider': 'anthropic_direct',
        }
    except Exception as e:
        duration = time.time() - start
        metrics.increment('claude.failure', tags={'error': type(e).__name__})
        metrics.record('claude.failure_latency_ms', duration * 1000)
        raise

Alert Thresholds

Metric	Warning	Critical
Error rate	> 2% for 2 min	> 10% for 1 min
p99 latency	> 15s	> 30s
429 rate	> 5/min	> 20/min
529 errors	Any	> 5/min

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The "Claude Is Down" Checklist

1. Check apistatuscheck.com/api/anthropic — confirm the outage
2. Check the error code:
   • 529 = overloaded (wait, don't panic)
   • 503 = actual outage (switch to fallback)
   • 429 = rate limited (might be YOUR usage, not an outage)
3. Test directly:

   curl https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages \
     -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
     -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
     -H "content-type: application/json" \
     -d '{"model":"claude-sonnet-4-20250514","max_tokens":10,"messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hi"}]}'
   

4. If using Bedrock/Vertex: Check those providers separately — they're independent
5. Activate multi-model fallback if not already automatic
6. Queue non-urgent requests for processing when Claude recovers
7. Communicate to users if AI features are degraded
8. After recovery: Process queued requests, verify response quality

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Get Notified Before Your Users Do

AI outages break features fast. Set up monitoring before the next one:

1. Bookmark apistatuscheck.com/api/anthropic for real-time status
2. Set up instant alerts via API Status Check integrations — Discord, Slack, webhooks
3. Subscribe to status.anthropic.com for official updates
4. Instrument your API calls — your own latency/error metrics are the fastest signal

The best AI architecture isn't the one that never fails — it's the one that seamlessly switches to a backup model while your users keep working. Build the fallback chain, cache what you can, and stop depending on a single provider.

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API Status Check monitors Anthropic/Claude and 100+ other APIs in real-time. Set up free alerts at apistatuscheck.com.