---
title: "Admin Delete User"
method: DELETE
path: "/users/{user_id_or_username}"
tags: ["Users"]
---

# Admin Delete User

`DELETE /users/{user_id_or_username}`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://api.chutes.ai` (the document declares no server; this is the origin it was published from)
- URL: `https://api.chutes.ai/users/{user_id_or_username}`
- Auth: API key in header `Authorization`

Permanently (hard) delete a user account. Requires the explicit ``delete_user`` permission.

Removes the ``users`` row, which the ``on_user_delete`` DB trigger archives into
``deleted_users`` and which CASCADEs ``api_keys``/``jobs``/``logos``/``chute_shares``/
``oauth_*``. Deletion requires: no privileged roles (the ordinary ``free_account`` billing
flag is allowed), a balance within +/-25, no owned Chutes, images, secrets, or external
accounts, and no external operations with unresolved settlement. Settled/non-billable
operation history is retained and anonymized; financial history (``admin_balance_changes``,
``payments``) has no FK and is preserved.

## Path parameters

- `user_id_or_username` string, required

## Headers

- `X-Chutes-Hotkey` string, nullable
- `X-Chutes-Signature` string, nullable
- `X-Chutes-Nonce` string, nullable
- `Authorization` string, nullable

## Request body

- UserDeletionRequest
  - `reason` string, nullable

## Response `200`

Successful Response

- string

## Other responses

- `422`: Validation Error

## Changes

- **2026-10-16** `23e8895b217d`: 1 breaking, 2 info
  - the response's body type changed from no type to `string` for status `200`
  - added the optional property `detail/items/ctx` to the response with the `422` status
  - added the optional property `detail/items/input` to the response with the `422` status
- **2026-08-26** `8d909638091e`: 1 info
  - endpoint added
- **2026-08-22** `05d9af05d87e`: 1 breaking
  - api path removed without deprecation

[Operation history](https://skmtc.dev/chutes/apis/chutes-api/changes/users/:user_id_or_username/delete.md)

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/chutes/apis/chutes-api.md) - [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/chutes/apis/chutes-api/llms.txt) - [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/chutes/apis/chutes-api/revisions/8add5b0e22da?raw)