Why do we receive INVALID_REPLICATION_FACTOR when creating a topic with replication factor=1

Last updated: August 10, 2026

Problem Statement

When creating a topic with replication factor = 1 via Console GUI, the following error was returned;

It said;

Failed to create topic, kafka responded with the following error: 

INVALID_REPLICATION_FACTOR: replication factor must be greater than or equal 

to specified minimum value

When using the rpk topic create command, it returns an error as follows;

$ rpk topic create test-topic --set replication.factor=1"
TOPIC      STATUS
test-topic INVALID_REPLICATION_FACTOR: Replication factor must be greater than or

equal to specified minimum value; check your 'default_topic_replications' cluster

configuration property

Solution

Please do not use a replication factor of 1, as it risks data loss. We strongly recommend using a replication factor of 3 or higher. The minimum replication factor is also set to protect your data and is enforced by the minimum_topic_replications property.

This restriction is set by minimum_topic_replications attribute. Please check the current value by the following rpk command;

rpk cluster config get minimum_topic_replications

If this number is not set to 3 or higher number, please set it to three using the following command.

  rpk cluster config set minimum_topic_replications 3

Notes

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