Who can advertise on Apple Maps?

Apple Maps advertising has a narrower door than most ad platforms. Check you fit through it before you spend an hour on setup.

The three requirements

1. A physical location customers can visit. Ads on Apple Maps promote places. No address a customer could turn up at, no ads. Online-only businesses and services that happen at the customer's address do not fit.

2. A business address in the US or Canada. The United States, excluding American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, and Canada. Nowhere else yet.

3. A verified profile in Apple Business. Free. Verification proves the location is yours. Instant by phone, up to 5 business days otherwise.

Meet all three and you are eligible, subject to category rules.

Categories Apple blocks entirely

• Home services: plumbing, electrical, locksmith, HVAC, pest control, roofing, general contracting.
• Bail bonds.
• Cryptocurrency ATMs.

The home services block surprises people. It is one of the biggest categories in local advertising and Google allows it. If you are a plumber, Apple Maps advertising is closed to you today, and no agency can open it.

Reviewed case by case

Medical services are assessed individually. Expect to be looked at rather than waved through.

Allowed, with extra rules

Alcohol, gambling and dating businesses can advertise with additional restrictions. Read Apple's current policy before you write creative, because the rules shape what the ad can say.

What "physical location" means in practice

Can a customer go there? Restaurant, gym, clinic, shop, hotel, salon, garage, gallery: yes.

Harder cases:

• A business inside another business. A counter inside a supermarket may or may not claim as its own location. Claim it and find out.
• Appointment-only offices. An address customers come to generally fits.
• Service businesses with a base. Having an office is not the same as customers visiting it. This is where the home services logic bites.
• Seasonal or pop-up locations. They need to exist as claimable locations for the period you advertise.

Genuinely unsure? Claim the location in Apple Business and see if it verifies. It costs nothing. Or check your category on the territory board, which tracks Apple's policy by category.

Multiple locations

Advertise all of them or a subset. Locations can be grouped by rules, so a chain can run a city or a region as one unit and read results per store.

The catch: every location has to be claimed and verified individually. Ten locations, ten verifications. With a deadline, start now. The launch credit deadline is October 11, 2026.

If someone else manages your listings

Apple supports third parties. From Apple Business, as an Organization or Marketing Administrator: Settings, then Integrations, then Partner Access, then Share Access. Enter the partner's Organization ID, choose Ads on Maps, pick the brands they may manage, send the invitation.

Access is per brand and can be withdrawn. You are not handing over your business, only the ability to run ads for it.

Quick self-check

1. Can a customer walk into my business at an address?
2. Is that address in the US or Canada?
3. Is my category outside home services, bail bonds and cryptocurrency ATMs?
4. Can I verify the location in Apple Business?

Four yeses and you can advertise. A no on the third and you are in medical: review lane, not refusal lane.

Sources

Requirements, prohibited and restricted categories, verification timing, multi-location handling and partner delegation come from Apple's published guidance for ads on Apple Maps, as of August 2026. Apple can change its policies at any time.