You should probably just read the PEP, which explains these things: https://peps.python.org/pep-0703/#reference-counting https://peps.python.org/pep-0703/#refe

You should probably just read the PEP, which explains these things: https://peps.python.org/pep-0703/#reference-counting https://peps.python.org/pep-0703/#reference-counting If by GC you mean the cyclic GC, free-threaded Python currently stops all threads while the cyclic GC is running.