To add your business to Apple Maps, sign in at business.apple.com, choose Brands then Locations, select Add, and either claim the place Apple already holds or create a new one. Apple then verifies it: by phone call if the location already exists on Maps, or by verifying your whole organisation if this is your first location. The review takes up to five business days.

Start with the name, because this is where older guides go wrong. The tool is now called Apple Business. Almost everything written on this in the last three years sends you to Apple Business Connect at businessconnect.apple.com, and that address now redirects. Apple announced Apple Business on 24 March 2026 and launched it on 14 April in more than 200 countries, folding Business Connect, Business Manager and Business Essentials into one free platform (Apple Newsroom).

What Apple Business Connect is now (and what happened to Apple Maps Connect)

Apple Business Connect launched on 11 January 2023 and gave us the two terms you still see everywhere: the place card, the panel a customer sees when they tap your business in Maps, and Showcases, the promotional module inside it (Apple Newsroom, January 2023). In April 2026 it stopped being a separate product. Apple moved everything across automatically, including "claimed locations, place card information, photos, organization information, account details, and more", so no listing needed re-claiming.

Both old addresses now land on business.apple.com. An old guide's link gets you somewhere, but not the screen it describes. The Maps features kept their names, and place cards, Showcases, brands and location reports all sit under the Brands menu.

Before you start: use a work Apple Account, not your personal one

Our own 2021 version of this post told you to create a personal Apple ID. That was bad advice. The account holding the claim is the account someone takes with them when they leave.

Sign-up offers two paths: an Apple Account for Work, which is a Managed Apple Account tied to a domain you control, or your existing personal Apple Account. On a personal account "you can use only brand and location management features of Apple Business" (Sign up and verify your organization). Fine for a one-person shop. With staff, use the work account.

Two things are easy to miss. You have 60 days from sign-up to get the organisation verified, and if it is not approved in that window Apple deletes the organisation and its data. Allow mail from all apple.com domains too, because verification, transfers and location alerts all arrive by email.

How to get your business on Apple Maps (step by step)

Most businesses are already on Apple Maps whether they put themselves there or not, so look for the place before you create one. Apple treats those as two flows (Add a location in Apple Business).

If the place already exists on Maps:

1. Sign in to Apple Business with a user whose role has permission to manage locations.
2. Choose Brands, then Locations.
3. Select Add.
4. Enter the name of your location, select locate, then select it from the results.
5. Drag the map, or enter coordinates, if the pin sits over the wrong building. Map Mode gives you Hybrid or Satellite view so you can see the entrance. Select Next.
6. Enter the default language, the display name shown in Apple Maps, the primary category, the status (Open or Opening Soon) and the phone number with its country. A website is optional; a Facebook, Instagram or TikTok page can stand in for it.
7. Select Next, set the hours of operation, then Next again.
8. Choose your brand, or create one.
9. Verify, using one of the two methods below.

If the place does not exist yet, only step 4 changes. Enter the name and select Add a new location with this name. If you pick Opening Soon, the opening date cannot be more than six months away.

Multi-location rollouts have one more snag. If Apple says "This location is already managed", someone else holds the claim, usually an agency you no longer work with. Add it anyway, then go to Status and select Request Transfer. Say why management should move, attach a business licence or a utility bill, and Apple decides within five business days. You never have to reach the previous holder.

How to verify your business: a phone call, or documents for the organisation

Phone verification is only offered when the location already exists on Maps. Select Location Verification, then Next, add an extension if you need one, choose the phone option, then enter the four-digit code when the call comes. Apple rings the number it already holds for that location, not the one you just typed, so if you do not recognise it, contact Apple Business support rather than guessing.

Organisation verification is required for your first location and covers every location after it. Apple asks for two of the following (Sign up and verify your organization):

The review takes up to five business days. Domain validation is fastest if you can edit DNS, and it ages best, because it does not expire the way a document does. Once a location is verified you can add Actions and build a showcase.

How to edit your business on Apple Maps

Editing follows the same path as adding: Brands, Locations, find the location, select it, edit the attribute. Display name, address, category, status, phone, website, photos and hours all live there. Handle address and name changes carefully, because they are what re-verification hangs on.

Apple edits your listing too, which is easy to miss. A customer who finds you shut when the card says open can report it from the place card, and Apple acts on those reports, then emails your Organisation Administrator, Marketing Administrator and anyone with permission to manage locations whenever it has changed a name, status or hours (Maintain location information accuracy).

The location then shows the status Updates Available. Select Looks Good to accept. To contest an hours or status change, select that attribute, then View Details, then Edit, and set it to something different from what Apple suggested. A name change is heavier: you resubmit with supporting documents and wait up to five business days, and if Apple says no you either take its version or try again. If nobody reads that mailbox, Apple's trading hours become the ones your customers see.

Place cards, photos, hours and Showcases

The place card holds the logo, cover photo, photos, hours, category, and the buttons Apple calls Actions. Showcases sit on top of it, "a module on the place card that allows you to highlight new items, deals or sales, or other promotional content" with a call to action (Create your first showcase). A heading is limited to 38 characters, and the body and alt text to 100. Showcases run for 90 days by default and 365 at most. Apple reviews every one, so allow three calendar days and do not edit a showcase while it is in review. A Christmas showcase submitted on 23 December is a January showcase.

Multiple locations on Apple Maps

Every location belongs to a brand, and the brand's name, logo and cover photo cascade to the locations under it, though each site can carry its own cover photo. Trade in several countries and Apple wants a brand per country with the matching country code. Brands are marked owned or franchised, the flag a franchise network needs before anyone argues about who controls the logo.

Bulk work is not self-serve. Apple documents adding locations one at a time, and the brand API goes to partners Apple has approved rather than to the brand itself, granted under Settings, Integrations, Partner Access. Location reports are where a network gets its answer instead: searches, place card views and Action taps, split by whether the customer searched your name or a category, for brands with 2,000 or fewer locations and up to 14 months of history (Use location reports for multiple locations).

Across every site, keep the trading name format, phone number format, address as the local post office writes it, primary category, and hours identical, including public holidays. The rules that stop two branches fighting each other on Google apply here too, and we wrote those up in managing multiple Google Business Profiles with the same name. Cloutly publishes hours, phone and address to Google Business Profile and your Facebook Page and watches Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google's public view for drift. That is the part of running one standard across a network of locations you can automate. Apple is not one of the places it publishes to, so Apple Business stays a manual job.

Does Apple Maps have reviews?

Apple Maps puts two different kinds of feedback on the same card. That is why owners sometimes think they have no rating.

Apple's own ratings are thumbs, not stars. A customer taps a place, taps Rate, and gives a thumbs up or thumbs down against the categories Apple offers for that kind of business. There is no text box. The card reads something like "155 Ratings, 90%", a share of positive taps rather than an average out of five, which is why an Apple number never lines up with a Google one. Apple's iPhone guide adds that "the Apple Ratings and Photos feature isn't available in all countries or regions", and that people get prompted to rate places they recently visited (Rate places and add photos in Maps). That prompt is why ratings appear when nobody asked for them.

The written reviews on your place card came from somewhere else. Apple says a place card "might include the street address, a phone number, a webpage link, customer reviews, and more" (Get information about places in Maps), and the Maps acknowledgements page credits "Reviews from Yelp" alongside listings data from Tripadvisor, Booking.com, Foursquare and Yext. Those reviews are not yours to manage inside Apple Business.

There is no reply box, either. The user guide gives a location photos, showcases, Actions and reports, and nothing for responding to a rating. A thumbs down is anonymous, wordless and final.

For a business with more than one site, Apple Maps is a distribution surface to keep accurate, not a review channel to work. The reputation a customer reads on your Apple place card is your Yelp reputation and, one tap later, your Google one, so put the effort where the words are. Our guide to adding and verifying a business on Google Maps and the Facebook reviews guide cover the two surfaces where a reply is possible at all. On both, ask every customer, not only the ones you expect to be pleased. Screening the ask by how you think someone will rate you breaks the policies of every platform worth appearing on.

Why should I add my business to Apple Maps?

Because it is where an iPhone sends people by default, and because Apple is now selling that attention. Maps is the map app on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and CarPlay, and it is what Siri answers place questions from. Apple confirmed in March 2026 that Ads on Maps would launch in the US and Canada in the summer, appearing "at the top of a user's search results based on relevance" and in a new Suggested Places view. An unclaimed place card is about to sit underneath a paid one.

An unclaimed listing is also one Apple maintains for you out of third-party data and customer reports, so your hours are whatever the last report said they were. Claiming costs an afternoon and one verification.

FAQ

How do I update my business address on Apple Maps? Sign in to Apple Business, choose Brands, then Locations, select the location, edit the address and drag the map pin onto the correct building. Address changes get the closest look from Apple, so expect a review rather than an instant change.

Is Apple Business free? Yes for the Maps side. Apple says the platform "will be available as a free service in the U.S. and 200+ countries and regions". The paid extras sit elsewhere: iCloud storage, AppleCare+ for Business, and Ads on Maps when it arrives.

Why is my business not showing on Apple Maps yet? Check what is waiting on Apple. Organisation verification takes up to five business days, a brand name or logo the same, a showcase three calendar days. If nothing is pending, see whether the location still shows as managed by another organisation.

Can I reply to an Apple Maps rating? No. Apple's thumbs up and thumbs down carry no text and no reply. If a customer has written something, they wrote it on Yelp or another source Apple pulls from, and you answer it there.

Do I need to re-claim my listing after the Apple Business Connect change? No. Apple migrated claimed locations, place card information, photos and account details automatically on 14 April 2026. If you cannot get in, that is an account problem, not a listing problem.