How to Add Your Business to GPS and Car Navigation Maps
How to get your business into GPS and in-car navigation maps: where TomTom, HERE, Apple, Google and Waze get place data, and how to correct each source.
On this page
- Adding Your Business to GPS Maps: Five Corrections, Not One
- Google and Apple: Owner-Managed, Not Something We Submit For You
- Waze: Community-Edited, Not a Form You Submit Once
- TomTom and HERE: The Two Maps Riding Inside Your Customers’ Cars
- Don’t Forget OpenStreetMap
- A Practical Order to Work Through This
- Where This Fits With Your Citation Footprint
When a customer’s car, phone or dedicated GPS unit is telling them where you are, and getting it wrong, the fix depends on which map that device is actually reading, because there’s no single place to add business to GPS everywhere at once. Five different providers, Google, Apple, Waze, TomTom and HERE, each maintain their own place data and their own correction tool, and a fix in one doesn’t reach the others. A wrong pin isn’t one bug to fix; it’s five separate citations that happen to render inside a dashboard instead of a search result.
Adding Your Business to GPS Maps: Five Corrections, Not One
Every navigation experience your customers use, whether it’s a phone app, a rental car’s built-in screen, or a dedicated dashboard unit, is reading place data from somewhere specific. Google Maps reads Google’s own index. Apple Maps reads Apple’s. Waze, though owned by Google, maintains a separate community-edited map. TomTom and HERE each license their maps into a wide range of car manufacturers’ built-in navigation systems, which means a single correction in one of those two tools can ripple out to several vehicle brands that never touch Google or Apple’s data at all. Treat each one as its own citation, because that’s functionally what it is: a record of your name, address and location that a machine reads and repeats.
| Source | How to add or fix it | Who reads it |
|---|---|---|
| Google Business Profile, claim or create at business.google.com/add | Google Maps and Google Search | |
| Apple | Apple Business, claim your location directly | Apple Maps, Siri, CarPlay |
| Waze | Waze Map Editor at waze.com/editor | The Waze app; changes publish through its daily Map Build |
| TomTom | Map Share reporting tool | TomTom devices and vehicle navigation systems that license TomTom’s map |
| HERE | HERE Map Creator, a free community mapping tool | In-dash navigation from car makers that license HERE’s map, plus the HERE WeGo app |
Google and Apple: Owner-Managed, Not Something We Submit For You
Google Business Profile and Apple Business (Apple renamed Apple Business Connect to Apple Business, folding it in with Apple Business Manager and Apple Business Essentials) are the two sources here you manage directly, and no citation tool, ours included, posts, edits or verifies on your behalf. Google’s own help center confirms that adding or claiming a profile happens at business.google.com/add, or by claiming an existing unverified profile through Google Maps, and that verification is required before you control what shows. Apple’s business site works the same way: you claim your location on Apple Maps, then control your hours, photos, logo and details from there. Both are free, and both feed into navigation far beyond a browser search, since Google Maps and Apple Maps are the default GPS app on most phones.
Waze: Community-Edited, Not a Form You Submit Once
Waze is different from the other four because it’s a live, community-maintained map rather than a business-profile system. You (or anyone else with an account) edit your place directly in the Waze Map Editor, and Waze publishes changes roughly once a day through what it calls the Map Build Process. If your business is in a “locked” area of the map, your edit becomes a suggestion that a local community map editor reviews before it goes live. Our full walkthrough on adding a business to Waze covers the claim flow, the review process and how Waze Ads (a discontinued paid product, unrelated to your free pin) fits in.
TomTom and HERE: The Two Maps Riding Inside Your Customers’ Cars
These two get the least attention because they’re invisible until something’s wrong, but they power a large share of in-dash automotive navigation. TomTom offers a public Map Share reporting tool for flagging an incorrect or missing location on its map. HERE runs HERE Map Creator, a free community tool where contributors can “add or edit places of interest with photos and opening hours” and “add or update addresses and pinpoint their exact location.” Because multiple car manufacturers license one or the other rather than building an in-house map, a single correction here can fix your business across several vehicle brands’ built-in systems at once, which is exactly why it’s worth the ten minutes even though it’s the source most businesses never think to check.
Don’t Forget OpenStreetMap
A meaningful slice of GPS devices and apps outside the commercial providers, including a range of outdoor, aftermarket and open-source navigation tools, run on OpenStreetMap data instead. It works differently again: OpenStreetMap is directly editable, free, and not owned by any single company. Our dedicated guide to adding a business to OpenStreetMap covers that process in full, including where it does and doesn’t accept certain business types.
A Practical Order to Work Through This
- Start with Google and Apple, since they cover the largest share of phone-based navigation. Verify you’re claimed on both.
- Check Waze next, especially if you’re a service business where technicians or staff drive to customers, like an HVAC contractor or a general contractor running multiple job-site visits a day.
- Submit a TomTom Map Share report and a HERE Map Creator edit, even if you’ve never used either product yourself. You’re not the audience; a customer’s rental car or their own vehicle’s built-in system is.
- Fix OpenStreetMap, since it quietly underlies more apps and devices than most businesses realize.
- Recheck your core NAP details with our free NAP checker once you’ve touched all five, since a wrong address or phone number gets copied into every one of these sources the same way it gets copied into any other local citation.
Where This Fits With Your Citation Footprint
None of these five sources are part of the standard directory catalog a local SEO citation builder builds and monitors for you, the way Bing Places, Facebook and Foursquare (through its official API) are, because each one is either a live map (Waze, OpenStreetMap, TomTom, HERE) or an owner-only profile Google and Apple require you to control directly. What they share with every directory in your citation set is the same underlying discipline: your NAP consistency across all of them, checked with the same eye for structured versus unstructured citations, and the same follow-through your other listings need. A citation building service handles the repetitive directory side of that work; the five sources above are worth your own ten minutes each because nothing reaches them for you.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add business to GPS systems that aren't Google or Apple?
Each GPS and in-car navigation brand pulls place data from its own map, so there's no single form that reaches all of them. TomTom has a Map Share reporting tool, HERE runs a free community tool called HERE Map Creator, and Waze uses the Waze Map Editor. You correct each one separately, the same way you'd correct any other citation.
Which map does my car's built-in navigation actually use?
It depends on the manufacturer and model year, and it isn't always the map on the dashboard's own brand. Many vehicles license their in-dash navigation data from TomTom or HERE rather than building their own map, so a correction made in one of those two tools can reach navigation systems from several different car brands at once.
Is it free to correct my business on TomTom or HERE?
Yes, both offer free public tools for this: TomTom's Map Share reporting tool for flagging a wrong or missing location, and HERE Map Creator, which lets contributors add or edit places, photos, hours and addresses at no cost. Neither requires a paid account to submit a correction, though changes still go through each company's own review process before they reach live maps and devices.
How long does it take for a GPS correction to show up in devices?
It varies by provider and isn't fully published for every one. Waze publishes changes through a daily Map Build Process. In-car and dedicated GPS devices running TomTom or HERE data typically update on a slower cycle than a phone app, since some depend on the vehicle or device itself pulling a periodic map update rather than refreshing instantly.
Do I need to fix my listing on every map source separately?
Yes, because each one (Google, Apple, Waze, TomTom, HERE and OpenStreetMap) maintains its own place data, and a fix on one doesn't propagate to the others automatically. Treat your map presence the same way you'd treat any other citation: check the name, address, phone and pin location on each source and correct what's wrong.
Does OpenStreetMap affect GPS navigation too?
Yes. OpenStreetMap is a free, editable map that powers a range of GPS devices and apps outside the commercial providers, including many outdoor and aftermarket units. Our guide to adding a business to OpenStreetMap covers how that entry works and why it's worth getting right even if you've never heard of the specific device that reads it.
Get these citations built for you
Citation Builder ranks the best citation sites for your country and industry, and builds your optimized citations.
Start freeFound this useful? Pin us in Google and our pages carry a preferred badge in your own Top Stories and AI results.
Add us as a preferred source on GoogleCitation sites for your market
Every directory below is ranked from our live catalog, with the free ones marked.