Claude's raised usage limits expire in August: the 5th and the 19th
Two temporary limit increases are live on paid Claude plans: doubled 5-hour limits in Cowork through August 5, and 50% higher weekly limits in Claude Code through August 19. Who gets them and what to do.
Two temporary limit increases are currently live on paid Claude plans. Both expire in August, two weeks apart, and they get mixed up constantly. Here is what's raised, who it covers, and what's worth doing before the clock runs out.
What's raised right now?
These are two separate promotions, not one.
Cowork: 5-hour limits doubled. Runs from June 5 through August 5, 2026, until 11:59 PM PT. Weekly limits are unchanged. Source: Anthropic's help article on the Cowork promotion.
Claude Code: weekly limits 50% higher. Runs from May 13 through August 19, 2026. 5-hour limits are unchanged. Source: Anthropic's help article on the Claude Code promotion.
| Product | Which limit | Until |
|---|---|---|
| Cowork (the mode that works with your files and tasks) | 5-hour, doubled | August 5, 2026 |
| Claude Code (coding work) | weekly, +50% | August 19, 2026 |
Regular Claude chat (web, app, phone) is untouched by either promotion.
Who gets them?
Pro, Max and Team plans, plus legacy seat-based Enterprise. Free plans and consumption-based Enterprise seats are excluded from both.
There's nothing to switch on: if your plan qualifies, the higher limit is already on your account. Check what's left in Claude's settings under Usage, or run /usage in Claude Code.
Why are they so easy to confuse?
Because they differ on all three counts at once: different product, different type of limit, different date.
Claude has two counters. The 5-hour one is how much you get through in a single sitting; it resets every five hours and it's the one that stops a long working session halfway. The weekly one is your total volume for the week, and it usually catches up with people who work with AI daily.
Cowork got more room inside a single sitting, Claude Code got more volume across the week. Remember one date instead of two, assume you're fine until August 19, and the doubled Cowork limit will run out two weeks earlier than you expected.
What to do before August 5?
A doubled 5-hour limit is about long Cowork tasks, the ones that normally hit the ceiling halfway through. Good candidates:
- go through a year's folder of contracts or invoices and pull the data into one table;
- bring accumulated SOPs and document templates into a single consistent format;
- assemble a report from a dozen scattered spreadsheets in one sitting.
The point isn't to do more of the same, it's to use the remaining week to test on a real task whether Cowork handles the work you keep postponing. After August 5, limits return to standard levels, with no change to your plan or billing.
If the task repeats every month, record it as a skill right away: here's how, via screen recording.
We teach working with Cowork and files step by step: free guides and the first lesson with no signup.
AGINE Academy is an independent product, not affiliated with Anthropic. Claude is a product of Anthropic.
Questions
No. If you're on Pro, Max, Team or a legacy seat-based Enterprise plan, the increase is already applied automatically. Check what's left in Claude's settings under Usage, or run /usage in Claude Code. Free plans and consumption-based Enterprise seats are excluded.
No. The doubled 5-hour limit applies to Cowork only. Regular Claude chat on web, desktop and mobile is unchanged, and so is Claude Code under this promotion, it has a separate one of its own.
Limits return to their standard levels on their own: the 5-hour limit in Cowork after August 5, the weekly limit in Claude Code after August 19. Your plan and billing don't change and there's nothing to do.