diff --git a/src/benchmark_radar/sources.py b/src/benchmark_radar/sources.py
index 709ed224..ab98cd8b 100644
--- a/src/benchmark_radar/sources.py
+++ b/src/benchmark_radar/sources.py
@@ -689,6 +689,9 @@ def fetch_github_organizations(
             for page in range(1, max_pages + 1):
                 if requests_made >= budget or len(found) + len(organization_found) >= limit:
                     break
+                # An outage still spends a request: count before calling so
+                # failed organizations cannot bypass the shared quota cap.
+                requests_made += 1
                 payload = get_json(
                     f"https://api.github.com/orgs/{login}/repos",
                     params={
@@ -701,7 +704,6 @@ def fetch_github_organizations(
                     headers=headers,
                     **_request_options(config),
                 )
-                requests_made += 1
                 if not isinstance(payload, list) or not all(
                     isinstance(row, dict) for row in payload
                 ):
diff --git a/tests/test_sources.py b/tests/test_sources.py
index 9dba4b53..d2d005cb 100644
--- a/tests/test_sources.py
+++ b/tests/test_sources.py
@@ -3375,3 +3375,24 @@ def test_collection_method_falls_back_to_a_static_default_without_items():
     assert collection_method("brave", []) == "API"
     assert collection_method("datacite", []) == "API"
     assert collection_method("openaire", []) == "API"
+
+
+def test_github_organization_failures_consume_request_budget(monkeypatch):
+    organizations = [
+        {"login": name, "display_name": name, "tier": "frontier"}
+        for name in ("first", "second", "third")
+    ]
+    calls = []
+    monkeypatch.setattr(
+        "benchmark_radar.sources.load_priority_github_organizations", lambda path: organizations
+    )
+
+    def fake_get_json(url, **kwargs):
+        calls.append(url)
+        raise RequestError("temporary outage")
+
+    monkeypatch.setattr("benchmark_radar.sources.get_json", fake_get_json)
+    # Failed requests still spend quota; max_requests used to count successes only.
+    with pytest.raises(RequestError, match="temporary outage"):
+        fetch_github_organizations({"max_requests": 1}, datetime(2026, 8, 8, tzinfo=UTC), 10)
+    assert calls == ["https://api.github.com/orgs/first/repos"]