Expo EAS Build Queued for Hours on Free Tier – Is This Normal?

Question

I'm currently using the managed Expo workflow and trying to build an APK for Android using eas build --platform android. I'm still on the free tier of Expo, and my build has been stuck in the “Queued” status for nearly four hours. The progress bar slowly moves, but the build hasn’t actually started yet — it just says “About 36 minutes remaining,” but the elapsed time keeps going up.

Timer photo

I haven’t expo ejected the app as im still building it, and I’m not using any custom native code — just a fairly standard managed React Native app. I’m building on a Lenovo Chromebook using VS Code, and I plan to distribute the APK via Firebase App Distribution once the build finishes.

Is it normal to wait this long for builds on the free tier? Are there known delays at certain times of day, or is this just a case of the free tier having a long queue?

Yep, free tier gives you 30 cloud builds per month (15 iOS max). Queues can be long since it’s low priority. Upgrading gives faster builds. — pavankommi
– pavankommi, Commented Jun 11 at 19:38
Yes - Ended with upgrading, as your build is pushed to lowerpriority — Lasse
– Lasse, Commented Jun 18 at 11:27

Mohamed Outerbah · Accepted Answer · 2025-08-12 15:20:16Z

1

This happened to me too on the free tier ,it’s just the queue being really busy.
Try running your build late at night when fewer people are building; it usually starts much faster then.

Also, as a just-in-case backup, you can run:

npm run android

to build locally and then grab the APK from the output directory. It’s not the same as an EAS build, but it works if you just need to test or distribute quickly.

On a standard Expo-managed project (without ejecting), if you run:

npm run android

will produce the APK at:

android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk

or just buy eas premium

answered Aug 12 at 15:20

Mohamed Outerbah

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