RecursionError in Python — What It Means and How to Fix It

What Python's RecursionError exception means and how to resolve it.

Published October 28, 2026

RecursionError is raised when a function calls itself too many times, exceeding Python's maximum recursion depth.

Key points

  • Catch it specifically with "except RecursionError:" when you want to handle this exact case rather than a bare except

Example

def f(): return f()\nf()  # RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceeded
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