How to activate license key in n8n v2.41.6 (Self-hosted on Railway)?

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1

i everyone,
I’m currently learning n8n using a textbook and running my instance self-hosted on Railway (version 2.41.6).
I received a license key to activate, and the instructions I followed suggested navigating to:
Settings → Usage and Plan → Enter activation key
However, I cannot locate the Usage and Plan option anywhere in my settings UI.
Has the license key entry menu moved in newer v2.x self-hosted versions?
Should I enter this key via Railway’s Environment Variables instead? If so, which variable name should I use?
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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  • n8n version: version 2.41.6
  • Database (default: SQLite):
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main):
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2

Hey @luckyseoch, while you wait for a response, here are some things that might help:

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@mrrobot, @MarioGuimaraes - you’ve helped with similar issues before, can you take a look?

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3

Hey @luckyseoch Welcome to the n8n community!

It hasn’t moved. In 2.41.6 the only thing that hides Settings > Usage and plan is N8N_HIDE_USAGE_PAGE=true, so check your Railway service’s Variables for it, set it to false (or delete it) and redeploy.

The env var route works too if you’d rather skip the UI. Add N8N_LICENSE_ACTIVATION_KEY with your key and redeploy, and n8n activates it at startup as long as the instance doesn’t have a license yet. If it doesn’t take, the deploy logs will show “Could not activate license” with the reason.

Same fix on an older thread: Help needed to activate a license key on a self-hosted n8n

4

thank you so much for kind advice..

5

Appreciate it.