A customer finds your door locked at an hour Apple Maps said you were open. They can report it to Apple from your listing. Apple reviews the report and can change the listing itself. When Apple edits a business’s name, status or hours, it sends the business an email.
That email goes to the people who manage the business on Apple Business, Apple’s tool for owners: its administrators and anyone allowed to manage locations. To get it, you need an account there with your location on it. Apple Maps may already show your business before you’ve ever signed in.
Apple Business is where you take charge of what Apple calls your place card: your name, hours, photos, phone number and other details. Apple says the card also turns up in Siri, Calendar, Messages and Spotlight searches. In April, Apple folded Apple Business Connect, its old tool for this, into Apple Business, which it announced as a free service.
Claiming it
Start at business.apple.com and select Sign up now. Within 60 days, you have to verify the business with two methods from Apple’s list. If Apple hasn’t approved you by then, it deletes the organization’s account and its data. Checking can take up to five business days, longer when Apple is busy. The methods:
- A business ID: an Employer Identification Number (EIN) or a D-U-N-S number, Dun & Bradstreet’s nine-digit company number
- A record added to your web address’s domain settings, proving you control the domain
- An official document: business license, sales tax permit, food, health or alcohol permit, lease or property agreement, utility bill or other
- App Store Connect, Apple’s account for businesses with an app
Apple lists the EIN and the D-U-N-S number as one method, so a shop with no website and no app will need a business ID and a document.
Then add your location under Brands > Locations. If Maps already shows it, Apple may offer to verify that location with a call to the phone number it has on file and give you a four-digit code. If Apple says “This location is already managed,” another account holds the card. Add it anyway, then request a transfer with proof such as a utility bill. That review can take up to five business days.
Keeping it right
The name has to match your storefront or website, with nothing added. “For your display name, there should be no details other than the name,” Apple says. That means no descriptions, no ®, © or ™, and no town unless the town is part of the brand. Photos must be real ones. Apple reviews each photo, which can take up to three business days. Its rules bar collages, added text, QR codes and “any AI-generated content,” and its photo guidelines rule out stock photos.
When Apple does change your card, open the location marked Updates Available in Apple Business. Select Looks Good if Apple got it right. If it didn’t, edit the field to something other than Apple’s version and save. For a name, add supporting documents if you have them and select Send for Review. Apple can take up to five business days to decide.
The Standard: Claim your Apple Maps listing at business.apple.com, verify the business within 60 days, and make sure mail from apple.com gets through your spam filter.
Source: Apple Business User Guide: “Sign up for Apple Business,” “Add a single location,” “Configure location attributes,” “Photo and text standards and guidelines,” “Maintain location information accuracy” and “Intro to Apple Business,” rechecked Oct. 12, 2026; Apple Newsroom, “Introducing Apple Business,” March 24, 2026; Dun & Bradstreet, “D-U-N-S Number,” read Oct. 12, 2026.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Apple will take a utility bill as proof of who runs a business; Farmington Storage keeps the boxes of them nobody is allowed to throw out yet. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington’s land use boards long enough to find Apple’s photo rules refreshingly clear. He is on his second coffee, which at the Mercury counts as moving fast. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town: Town Council and the land use boards, the police log, the schools, elections, and the businesses in Farmington and Unionville. Our motto is “Always last to breaking news,” and nobody has ever accused us of breaking it. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell a neighbor. 📰