Google ACE Setting Up a Cloud Solution Environment Practice Question
After creating a new GCP project, an engineer attempts to delete it using `gcloud projects delete PROJECT_ID` but receives an error. What is the most likely cause?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The project is linked to a billing account that must be disabled first
A project cannot be deleted if it has a billing account attached. The billing account must be disabled (disassociated) first.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The project still has running resources (e.g., VM instances)
Why it's wrong here
Running resources like Compute Engine VM instances do not block project deletion. When you delete a project, GCP automatically and forcefully terminates all running resources, including VMs, Kubernetes clusters, and managed services. The deletion process will shut down these resources as part of the cleanup. Therefore, having active VM instances would not produce an error preventing the deletion.
- ✗
The IAM policy prevents deletion
Why it's wrong here
A missing IAM permission would produce a 403 permission denied error. To delete a project, you need the `resourcemanager.projects.delete` permission, typically granted by the Owner or Project Editor roles. Since the engineer just created the project, they likely hold the Owner role and have this permission. The error message for a billing-account attachment is a different, more common failure point.
- ✗
The project ID is invalid
Why it's wrong here
Project IDs are globally unique and immutable, and a newly created project always has a valid ID. If you attempt to delete a non-existent or already-deleted project, GCP returns a 404 'Not Found' error. The engineer's project was just created, so its ID is definitely valid. Thus, an invalid project ID is not the cause of this deletion failure.
- ✓
The project is linked to a billing account that must be disabled first
Why this is correct
Before a GCP project can be deleted, its billing account attachment must be removed by disabling billing or unlinking the billing account. GCP will reject the deletion if the project is still linked to an active Cloud Billing account, returning an error such as 'Project is linked to a billing account'. You must disable the project's billing association first, then retry the deletion. This is the typical failure after creating a new project because billing is enabled by default.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This ACE practice question is part of Courseiva's free Google Cloud certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the ACE exam.