ChatGPT was down for many – here's what we know about the outage that hit some paid subscribers

If you encountered an issue asking ChatGPT for a morning update, a topical question, or wanted to give the new Agent mode a try, you weren't alone as OpenAI confirmed a partial outage lasted for a little over an hour on July 21, 2025.

At it's peak, we tracked over 1,500 reports in the US and nearly 1,000 reports in the UK on Down Detector – a site that tracks issues with platforms – and OpenAI’s own status page confirmed ChatGPT was in the midst of an outage for paid subscribers.

The posted bulletin confirmed it didn't impact free ChatGPT users, but read, “Elevated errors on ChatGPT for all paid users.”

This is one of the more recent ChatGPT outages, but wasn't nearly as widespread as previous ones or as long-lasting. The issue is now resolved a little over an hour that the problem was confirmed. You can continue scrolling to view our live reporting while the issue was impacting ChatGPT.

2025-07-21T13:02:35.294Z

OpenAI confirms there's an issue

OpenAI has been quick to confirm issues, providing an update that it has identified the issue as of 8:38AM ET. Here's the full message on the status page.

Elevated errors on ChatGPT for all paid users

We have identified that users are experiencing elevated errors for the impacted services.

We are working on implementing a mitigation.

It's listed as a partial outage that's still ongoing and is mostly impacting paid users. I have my own ChatGPT Plus account and haven't encountered any issues as of yet, although reports on Down Detector are still in the low thousands – 1,500 in the US and approximately 700 in the UK.

It's possible that this has a shorter-lasting impact on ChatGPT's services this morning.

2025-07-21T13:17:14.012Z

OpenAI's status page indicates that this partial outage has been ongoing for 37 minutes and that most of the issues are related to conversations with ChatGPT. Meaning that the AI might be erroring out when responding to a query from you or just not responding at all.

2025-07-21T13:28:59.270Z

Reports on Down Detector indicate that the issue is starting to resolve, which may mean that OpenAI's efforts to fix it are progressing smoothly. As of 9:10AM ET, Down Detector in the US shows 164 reports, and in the UK at 9:12AM shows 81 reports.

Both of those fall within the normal range for reports that don't necessarily indicate a larger issue. Considering OpenAI has confirmed an ongoing issue, it likely means we're closer to a full resolution.

2025-07-21T13:44:11.850Z

OpenAI states that it's still working on resolving this partial outage, but it appears that for most individuals who reported the issue, ChatGPT is now functioning normally.

The latest status update, posted at 9:41 AM ET, reads, "We're continuing to work on mitigation."

I did ask ChatGPT about the issues this morning, and it recommends retrying to send a message if it fails or refreshing the page after a minute or two.

2025-07-21T14:20:58.780Z

ChatGPT gives the all clear

As of 10:16 AM ET, just minutes ago, OpenAI has given the all clear, and ChatGPT is now back to normal for the impacted users. Remember, this partial outage impacted paid subscribers.

The update reads, "We have applied the mitigation and are monitoring the recovery." So if you're still seeing errors, it's best to retry sending the message or refresh the page.

It's good to see that ChatGPT is back to business as usual for all folks now, though. Down Detector reports are still way down, but in the normal range as well.