How to get discovered on Apple Maps with Apple Business

Claiming a location in Apple Business, Apple's free management platform, is how a business controls its details on Apple Maps. Apple launched it on April 14, 2026, and it replaced Apple Business Connect, Apple Business Manager and Apple Business Essentials, with existing Business Connect listings migrated across. The Maps work comes in three steps: claim the location, verify the organization, then fill out the Place Card.

A Place Card is the panel a customer sees after tapping a business in Apple Maps. It carries the name, address, phone number, website, hours, categories, photos, Showcases and Action buttons. Apple says Place Cards also appear in Safari, Spotlight and other Apple apps.

What Apple Business Includes

Apple's March 24, 2026 announcement lists the brand-facing features: brand profiles, Place Cards, Showcases and custom Actions, location insights, Branded Mail, Tap to Pay on iPhone branding, and advertising on Apple Maps. Device management, business email, calendar and directory tools sit in the same account.

The core service costs nothing. In the United States, paid extras are iCloud storage from $0.99 per user per month and AppleCare+ for Business from $6.99 per month per device. Some features vary by country, and Apple keeps a feature availability list that's worth checking before planning around one of them.

How to Claim Your Business on Apple Maps

Sign-up starts on the Apple Business site with the organization's name, address and an optional website URL, which Apple says can speed up verification. The person enrolling becomes the Organization Administrator and must use a real, legal human name, not a company name. Apple's sign-up guide walks through the email and phone codes.

Organization verification needs two methods from Apple's list: a Business ID (D-U-N-S Number or EIN), a TXT record on the business domain, an app in App Store Connect, or a document upload. Accepted documents include a business license, sales tax permit, food, health or alcohol permit, lease, or utility bill. Review can take up to five business days, longer during periods of high volume, and Apple deletes the organization if it isn't approved within 60 days.

Locations live under Brands > Locations > Add Location. Search for the business by name first. If it already exists on Maps, select it; if another organization already manages it, finish adding it and then use Request Transfer with supporting documents, which Apple reviews within five business days.

Check the map marker before moving on. If it sits on the wrong building, drag the map or enter coordinates, and switch to Hybrid or Satellite view to see the entrance clearly. Apple's add-a-location guide covers both the new-location and existing-location flows.

The listing form asks for a default language, a display name, a single primary category, a status of Open or Opening Soon, a phone number with country code, an optional website, hours, and a brand to attach the location to. An Opening Soon date can't be more than six months out.

Existing locations may get a shortcut: phone verification. Apple calls the number it already has on record for that location and reads out a four-digit code. If the number on record isn't yours, Apple's guidance is to contact Apple Business support rather than guess.

Complete Your Place Card

A verified, claimed listing is the starting point. The rest of the fields separate a bare listing from a useful one, and each has rules in Apple's location attributes guide.

Categories. Apple allows one primary category and up to 19 optional ones. The primary category sets the icon Maps shows for the location, so pick the closest specific match rather than a broad one.

Hours. Apple's stated expectation is that hours on the Place Card match the hours on the business website. Holidays are handled as temporary hours: enter reduced open hours for a partial day, or mark the day or date range closed.

Display name and About. The display name is the name only; Apple's rule is "no details other than the name," so no taglines or keywords. The About field is free text for describing the location, and it can be written in more than one language.

Good to Know. This is the amenities section: payment methods, parking, accessible parking, restrooms, EV charging and similar. Fill in what applies and leave the rest blank.

Photos. Apple accepts HEIF, JPEG and PNG, with a 720 x 960 pixel minimum for location photos and a 1600 x 1040 minimum for the cover photo, for which Apple recommends a single photo with no edits, promotional text, watermarks or clip art. The limit is 100 photos per location and Apple reviews every one before it shows; the photo standards reject stock images, AI-generated images, screenshots, collages, QR codes and anything with added text or borders, and the photo guide has the full spec.

Showcases. A Showcase is a promotional module on the Place Card for a new item, deal or event, built from a 1:1 image, a headline of up to 38 characters, body text of up to 100 characters and a call-to-action button. It can run for up to 365 days (90 by default), and Apple's Showcase guide says review takes up to three calendar days, with the whole Showcase rejected if any one language version fails.

Actions. These are the buttons at the top of the card linking to a reservation, menu, pickup or delivery page, and the first Action created becomes the Primary Action automatically. Apple approves each one, which can take up to three business days, a URL can't be reused across action types, and iPhone users need iOS 17.4 or later to see them, per the Actions guide.

Apple Business Features Beyond Maps

Branded Mail puts the brand name and logo on emails as they appear in the Mail app on iPhone and in iCloud Mail. It requires a verified organization, a commercial email domain (no gmail.com), DMARC on the mail server and DKIM signing on every message. Domain verification has a 14-calendar-day window and Apple's review takes up to seven business days, per the Branded Mail guide.

Tap to Pay on iPhone branding shows the verified name and logo on the payment screen when a business accepts contactless payments through a supported app. Setup links the verified brand to the Tap to Pay merchant ID set by the payment provider, and Apple notes Tap to Pay isn't available in every country. The Tap to Pay branding guide lists the steps.

Ads on Apple Maps, which Apple launched in summer 2026, are available in the United States and Canada. An ad can appear at the top of Suggested Places or at the top of relevant search results with a blue "Ad" label, and Apple says a business must claim its location before it can advertise.

Apple Business Versus Google Business Profile

Apple Business controls the listing on Apple Maps and everywhere else Apple surfaces Place Cards; Google Business Profile controls Google Search and Google Maps. A business needs both, with the same name, address, phone number and hours on each, and categories that fit each platform's own list.

Common Listing Mistakes

Keywords in the business name. Apple's display-name rule is the name and nothing else.

A pin on the wrong building. Apple lets you drag the marker and enter coordinates during setup, so there is no reason to accept the default placement.

Photos that fail review. Stock images, screenshots, photos with added text, and photos obviously modified with filters, overlays or collages don't meet Apple's standards, and nothing shows until Apple approves it.

Expecting a ranking boost. Claiming a location gives control of the information shown. Paid placement at the top of results is a separate product, Ads on Maps.

A Quick Checklist for Local Business Listings

Apple Maps is one of five places a local business should be claimed and kept consistent. The local SEO guide covers the wider strategy, and the best web directories for local SEO ranks the rest.

Google Business Profile: Google Search and Google Maps.

Bing Places for Business: Bing search and maps.

Yelp for Business: Yelp listing and reviews.

DirJournal: business directory listing with a link back to the business website.

Hours change, phone numbers change and categories drift, so each listing needs a check every few months.