Best Free Geocoding APIs (July 2026)

Ranked by uptime + speed + free-tier quality. Updated every hour.

Looking for a free geocoding API that works today? The list below is ranked by our composite score — weighted 60% uptime, 30% response speed, and 10% free-tier accessibility, recalculated every hour from live checks. See our methodology for how the score is computed.

Quick answer:

We track 14 free geocoding APIs with live hourly checks. The current top pick is ip-api.com (99.44% 30-day uptime) — and it needs no API key. 6 of the 14 require no API key at all, and 4 hold 99%+ uptime.

#1 ip-api.com — 🟢 Online
Free IP geolocation API returning country, city, region, ISP, and coordinates for any IP address. No key required.

45 calls/min (HTTP only), no key, no credit card
#2 IPinfo — 🟢 Online
IP address data API providing geolocation, ASN, company, carrier, privacy detection, and abuse contact info.

50,000 calls/month, no key (token extends limits)
#3 GeoIP-db — 🟢 Online
Free IP geolocation API with no key required, returning country, city, state, latitude, and longitude for any IP.

Unlimited, no key, no credit card
#4 Nominatim (OpenStreetMap) — 🟢 Online
Free forward and reverse geocoding from OpenStreetMap data. Rate-limited.

1 req/sec, must set User-Agent, no key
#5 OpenCage Geocoding API — 🟢 Online
Forward and reverse geocoding API aggregating multiple open data sources including OpenStreetMap and Geonames.

2,500 calls/day, free key, no credit card
#6 ipapi.co — 🔴 Offline
IP address geolocation and timezone API returning country, city, region, currency, and language for any IP.

1,000 calls/day, no key required
#7 Mapbox Geocoding API — 🔴 Offline
High-quality forward and reverse geocoding powered by OpenStreetMap and proprietary data with autocomplete support.

100,000 calls/month, free key, no credit card
#8 Geoapify — 🔴 Offline
Geocoding, reverse geocoding, and places search API built on OpenStreetMap with routing and isochrone support.

3,000 calls/day, free key, no credit card
#9 Positionstack — 🔴 Offline
Forward and reverse geocoding API built on OpenStreetMap with support for 2 billion+ places and 100+ countries.

25,000 calls/month, free key, no credit card
#10 HERE Geocoding & Search API — 🔴 Offline
Enterprise-grade geocoding and places search API using HERE's global map data with high accuracy.

1,000 calls/month, free key (Freemium plan), no CC
#11 BigDataCloud Reverse Geocoding — 🔴 Offline
Free reverse geocoding API converting coordinates to addresses with locality, city, country, and postcode data.

Unlimited (client-side), no key for basic endpoints
#12 MapQuest Geocoding API — 🔴 Offline
Geocoding and reverse geocoding API using OpenStreetMap data with batch support and fuzzy matching.

15,000 calls/month, free key, no credit card
#13 Abstract IP Geolocation — 🔴 Offline
IP geolocation API with city, country, timezone, currency, and threat detection data with 99.99% uptime SLA.

20,000 calls/month, free key, no credit card
#14 Geocodify — 🔴 Offline
Geocoding API with forward and reverse lookup using OpenStreetMap data, supporting batch processing.

25,000 calls/month, free key, no credit card

The free geocoding API landscape in 2026

Geocoding — converting addresses to coordinates and vice versa — is one of those infrastructure primitives that developers underestimate until they're building a real product. The free options fall into three families: OpenStreetMap-backed services (Nominatim, Photon, geocode.maps.co), government-backed services (US Census, French BAN, UK Ordnance Survey), and commercial-freemium services with generous free tiers (Geoapify, Positionstack, OpenCage, HERE).

Nominatim is the reference implementation and covers the entire planet, but has a hard 1 request/second rate limit on the public instance and prohibits bulk use. Positionstack has a 25k/month free tier with commercial-friendly terms. OpenCage offers 2,500/day with high-quality address parsing. HERE's free tier is 250k/month which is unusually generous.

This category page ranks by uptime and free-tier friction (no-key providers rank higher). Rankings recompute every hour from live checks.

How to choose a free geocoding API

First question: forward, reverse, or both? Forward geocoding (address → coordinates) is what most search boxes need. Reverse geocoding (coordinates → address) is what map click handlers need. Some providers do both well; others specialize.

Second: regional accuracy. Nominatim covers the world uniformly but is less accurate in the US than proprietary providers optimized for US TIGER data. Photon (OSM-backed) is fast and multilingual. Positionstack is stronger in EU. If your traffic is >90% one region, test with region-specific addresses before choosing.

Third: licensing. OSM-backed providers require attribution ('© OpenStreetMap contributors') in your UI. Nominatim's terms explicitly prohibit heavy commercial use of the public instance — you're expected to run your own instance for anything at scale. Commercial-freemium providers have clean commercial terms up to their volume limits.

Finally: address parsing quality. 'Apt 4B' vs 'Apartment 4B', '1234 N Main St' vs '1234 North Main Street' — good geocoders normalize these to the same result. Test with messy real-world addresses, not just clean docs examples.

Common pitfalls when integrating geocoding APIs

The most common mistake is hitting Nominatim's public instance directly from production. The 1 req/sec limit is enforced by IP and shared across all users of that IP. A serverless function that scales to 100 concurrent instances will exceed that limit within one autoscale event. Either run your own Nominatim instance (surprisingly feasible on a $20/month VPS) or pay for a hosted commercial provider.

The second is missing the User-Agent requirement. Nominatim, MET Norway, and several government geocoders return 403 to requests without a descriptive User-Agent that includes contact info. Setting a browser-like User-Agent is against terms of service.

The third is ignoring address normalization. Users type addresses in many formats. Sending them raw to the geocoder often works, but caching the result under the raw string means the cache miss rate is much higher than it needs to be. Normalize (lowercase, collapse whitespace, expand common abbreviations) before caching.

Compare Geocoding APIs

Side-by-side comparisons of the top Geocoding APIs — free tier, uptime, and response time:

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best free geocoding API in 2026?

Nominatim (powered by OpenStreetMap) is the most permissive free option: no API key, no monthly call cap, and global coverage. The main constraint is 1 request/second and you must set a User-Agent header identifying your application.

Does Google Maps geocoding have a free tier?

Google Maps Platform provides $200 of monthly credit, which covers roughly 40,000 geocoding requests. After that you pay per request. It's not truly free for high-volume use. Nominatim and OpenCage are better options if you need a genuine no-cost tier.

What are the rate limits for free geocoding APIs?

Nominatim limits to 1 request/second with no daily cap. OpenCage's free tier gives 2,500 calls/day. Mapbox has a generous 100,000 requests/month free. Photon (also OpenStreetMap-backed) has no formal rate limit but expects reasonable usage.

Can I use Nominatim in a commercial app?

Yes, but with conditions. The OpenStreetMap data is ODbL-licensed, meaning you must attribute OpenStreetMap contributors and share derivative databases. You also cannot use the public Nominatim instance for heavy traffic — consider hosting your own or using OpenCage for production.

Which free geocoding APIs support reverse geocoding?

Nominatim, OpenCage, Mapbox, and Photon all support reverse geocoding (coordinates to address). Nominatim is the most straightforward for getting started. For accuracy in rural areas, OpenCage often produces better results as it combines multiple data sources.