Free NAP Checker
Check your business Name, Address & Phone for consistency across local directories. This free NAP and local citation checker reads OpenStreetMap, iBegin and Lacartes live, compares them field by field to what you enter, and tells you where your NAP is right, wrong or missing. No signup, and nothing you type is stored.
What this free NAP checker actually checks
Three sources, read live, anonymously and server-side at the moment you press the button. It is not a lookup against a listings database we crawled months ago: each scan queries the sources that answer a free, anonymous request, then compares what they publish against the exact details you typed, field by field (the business name first, then the phone, then the street number and street name).
| Source | What we read | If we find nothing there |
|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap via the Nominatim search API | Structured name, address and phone tags. Open data that, in OpenStreetMap’s own words, "provides map data for thousands of websites, mobile apps, and hardware devices". | Missing. OpenStreetMap answered and you were genuinely not in it, which makes it a real listing opportunity. |
| iBegin free business directory | The public search results page, parsed for the business name, street line and phone number. | Skipped. The directory can block or rate-limit an automated read, so a blank answer is reported as unread, never as absent. |
| Lacartes free international directory | The public search results, then the best-matching profile page for its published NAP. | Skipped. Same rule: no readable answer means no verdict. |
| Google, Apple, Facebook, Yelp | Nothing. None of them can be read anonymously for free. | Not shown at all. We would rather return three honest rows than twenty invented ones. |
That last rule is the whole design argument. Most free NAP tools count every source they could not read as a listing you are missing, because a long red list is what sells the cleanup that follows. Our scanner keeps "we read it and you are not there" and "we could not read it" as two different answers, and only the sources it genuinely read are allowed to affect your score. It is the same standard behind our citation audit service, applied to the free version.
What NAP consistency is, and why it decides more than rankings now
NAP is your Name, Address and Phone. NAP consistency means those three appear identically everywhere they are published, down to the abbreviations: "St." against "Street", a missing suite number, an old landline, a call-tracking number on one directory and the real line on another. Search engines corroborate a business by matching those details across independent sources, so every variant splits authority that should point at one entity. The full explanation lives in our NAP consistency guide and the short definition in the glossary entry for NAP consistency.
The stakes changed with AI answers. A map pack ranks a business; an AI assistant reads the web and states one phone number as fact. When your sources disagree, an answer engine either picks the wrong one or hedges and cites a competitor whose details are unambiguous. That is why consistent local citations remain one of the few local SEO inputs you fully control, and why we treat them as citation hygiene for AI search rather than a 2015 checklist item.
How to read your results
Every source comes back with one of four labels, and the score sits above them.
- Correct: the source lists you and the fields we could compare match what you entered.
- Needs fixing: the source lists you but publishes a different phone or address. The row shows both values side by side, so you know exactly what to change.
- Missing: the source was readable and has no record of you. This is coverage, not an error.
- Skipped: the source did not answer, rate-limited us or renders results with JavaScript we do not execute. No conclusion is drawn.
The percentage is not "how many directories you are on". It is the share of comparable NAP fields that match across the listings we found: a field a listing does not publish is skipped rather than counted against you, and a missing listing does not lower it, because absence is a coverage problem shown separately. A listing with the right name and phone but a stale address therefore scores partially, not zero.
| Score | Grade | What it means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| 90 to 100 | A | Clean. Keep it that way and spend your effort on coverage instead. |
| 75 to 89 | B | One field is drifting somewhere. Cheap to fix now, annoying later. |
| 60 to 74 | C | A real inconsistency is published. Set a canonical NAP before adding listings. |
| 40 to 59 | D | Multiple sources disagree with you. Fix before any new citation work. |
| Below 40 | F | Your published details and your actual details are two different businesses. |
Leave the phone and street address blank and there is almost nothing to compare, so the score will look thin. Fill both in for a result worth acting on.
What to do about a mismatch
- Pick one canonical NAP and write it down exactly as it should appear, punctuation included. Every later decision is a comparison against that one string.
- Fix the wrong records before adding new ones. Standardising first on top of duplicates just creates two clean listings that contradict each other. Our walkthrough is in how to fix NAP inconsistency, and the duplicate-specific case in finding and fixing duplicate listings.
- Widen the scope past these three sources. The free scan is a spot check, not an inventory. The citation audit service scopes every directory that exists for your country and industry, and the directory index shows what that set looks like before you commit to anything.
- Then build the missing listings once, correctly. Our citation building service submits your canonical NAP to the ranked set for your market and captures screenshot proof of each live listing. The listings stay yours and stay live even if you cancel; the subscription is what keeps them monitored, re-verified and corrected as details drift.
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Frequently asked questions
Is this NAP checker free?
Yes. The scan is free and instant, with no account, no credit card and no report gate: results render on the page the moment the scan finishes, not after an email capture. Nothing you type is stored. You only create an account if you want the mismatches actually fixed and the missing listings built.
What sources does the NAP checker use?
Three sources we can read for free and anonymously: OpenStreetMap through its Nominatim search API (open data that, in OpenStreetMap’s own words, "provides map data for thousands of websites, mobile apps, and hardware devices"), plus the free business directories iBegin and Lacartes. We deliberately give no verdict for Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect, Facebook or Yelp, because none of them can be read anonymously for free and inventing a status for them would make the report look thorough while being fiction.
How is this different from a citation audit?
Scope and outcome. The free checker reads three sources and answers one question: do your published details match what you entered. A citation audit scopes the full set of directories that exist for your country and industry (an average of 35 across the 50 markets we index), checks each one, then ends in the listings being corrected and built rather than in a list of problems. The audit page explains that scoping in detail.
How often should I check NAP consistency?
Whenever something changes (a move, a new number, a rebrand, a new location) and then roughly quarterly as a background check. Citation data decays for undramatic reasons: directories merge records, aggregators re-import stale data, someone submits a call-tracking number. On a subscription, confirmed-live listings are re-verified on a rolling weekly basis with screenshot proof, so drift is caught rather than discovered a year later.
Why does a source show as "Skipped" instead of "Missing"?
Because we could not read it on that request, and calling that a missing listing would be a guess. A directory can rate-limit us, block the request or render results with JavaScript we do not execute. "Missing" means we read the source and you were genuinely not in it. "Skipped" means the source did not answer. Only sources we actually read count toward your score, so an unreadable directory never inflates your problem list.