Troubleshooting: “Permission Denied: Code 403” from Google Play Deployment

What’s going on?

Attempting to deploy without configuring the permissions correctly is one of the most common causes of a publishing error when deploying to the Google Play Store. You’ve just tried to deploy your app, and you hit a 403 – Permission Denied error. In short: your application or service account doesn’t have the right permission to do what you’re asking it to.

Why it happens

Here are the most common causes:

You might be using the wrong service-account.json (or it’s corrupted/expired).
The service account doesn’t have the needed IAM roles (for example Owner, Editor, etc).
The necessary API(s) in your Google Cloud project haven’t been enabled yet.

Step-by-step: how to fix it

Let’s walk through what you should check, one by one:

1. Check your service account JSON

Make sure you are using the correct service-account.json file for the project you’re working in.
Verify it hasn’t been corrupted or expired. If you downloaded a key a long time ago, it might no longer work.
Update your configuration in FlutterFlow if the file has changed.

2. Verify IAM roles & permissions

Go to your Google Cloud / Firebase console for the specific project.
Find the service account you're using, and make sure it has the required role(s). For many use-cases, roles like Editor or Owner will work, but often you’ll want more specific granular roles for security.
Remember the principle of least privilege — only give what’s required. Over-granting can introduce security risk.

3. Enable required APIs

Still in the Google Cloud Console, go to APIs & Services.
Confirm that the APIs your application needs are enabled. If they’re not, enable them. Without the API enabled, permission checks can fail with 403.

4. Regenerate the service account key (if needed)

If you suspect the key is invalid (maybe it was deleted or revoked), generate a new key for the service account.
Update your app configuration so it references the new key.
It’s good practice to rotate service account keys now and again for security.

Quick checklist

[ ] Correct service-account.json file in use
[ ] Service account has adequate IAM role(s)
[ ] Required APIs are enabled in the Google Cloud project
[ ] (If all else fails) Regenerated the service account key

When this still doesn’t fix it

If you’ve done all the above and you’re still seeing the 403 error:

Double-check that you’re operating in the right project (sometimes a project mismatch causes issues).
Look at detailed logs in Google Cloud’s Logging / Audit to see what exact permission was denied (it often shows the specific “permission X on resource Y” error).
Consult the Google Cloud IAM documentation for deeper troubleshooting.

TL;DR

You got a “403 Permission Denied” because something is mis-configured: either the service account key is wrong, permissions are missing, or an API isn’t enabled. Fix those, and you’re good to go.