Best Geocoding APIs in 2026: Free Tiers, Pricing and Limits Compared

Best Geocoding APIs in 2026: Free Tiers and Pricing Compared

01Introduction

Every app that ships, delivers, books or matches people by location runs into the same problem: users type addresses, and software needs coordinates. A food delivery app has to route a courier to "flat 3, 12 Market St". A store locator has to sort branches by distance. A logistics team has to check that 10,000 addresses actually exist before printing labels. A ride app has to turn a GPS point back into a pickup address.

A geocoding API does that translation. Send an address and get latitude and longitude back, or send coordinates and get the nearest address (reverse geocoding). E-commerce checkouts, delivery and logistics apps, real estate and travel sites, CRMs cleaning customer data, and AI agents that plan routes all depend on one.

Quick picks:

• Best data quality: Google Maps or HERE
• Biggest free tier: Mapbox (100,000 requests a month)
• Free for commercial use: Geoapify or LocationIQ
• Results you can store: OpenCage
• EU-based or EU-hosted: HERE, OpenCage or ApyHub
• Address checks plus AI agents on one subscription: ApyHub

02What a geocoding API returns

One request, one JSON response. Here is a forward geocoding call to ApyHub's Address Validation API, trimmed:

{
  "valid": true,
  "status": "exact",
  "confidence": 92,
  "resolved": {
    "road": "Keizersgracht",
    "house_number": "520-H",
    "city": "Amsterdam",
    "postcode": "1017 EK",
    "lat": 52.3655302,
    "lng": 4.8866382
  }
}

03Geocoding API pricing compared

Google's old $200 monthly credit ended on February 28, 2025. Google now includes 10,000 free geocoding requests a month, so most other free tiers are now larger than Google's.

Prices from each provider's pricing page, October 2026.

04How to choose a geocoding API

1. Can you use the free tier in production? OpenCage's free trial is for testing only, and Nominatim's public server forbids heavy use.
2. What does it cost at your volume? At a million lookups a month, $1 per 1,000 is $1,000.
3. Can you store the results? Google and Mapbox's default mode restrict caching.
4. Where is the data processed? Customer addresses are personal data under GDPR.

05The 8 best geocoding APIs

1. Google Maps Geocoding API

The reference for global address data. $5.00 per 1,000 after 10,000 free, falling to $0.38 above 5 million.

• Shines: proprietary global data, steep volume discounts.
• Lags: smallest free tier, caching restricted except place IDs.

2. Mapbox

Two modes: temporary (display only) and permanent (storable).

• Shines: 100,000 free temporary requests a month, then $0.75 per 1,000.
• Lags: permanent geocoding costs $5.00 per 1,000 with no free tier.

3. HERE Geocoding and Search

Dutch company with its own map data, widely used in cars.

• Shines: 30,000 free a month, then $0.83 per 1,000.
• Lags: pricing is spread across several pages.

4. Geoapify

OpenStreetMap-based geocoding, routing and places on one key.

• Shines: 3,000 free credits a day, usable in production with attribution.
• Lags: paid plans start at $59 a month; house-level coverage varies by country.

5. LocationIQ

OpenStreetMap geocoding with US and EU data centers.

• Shines: 5,000 free requests a day, commercial use allowed with a link back.
• Lags: free plan limited to 2 requests a second.

6. OpenCage

Berlin-based geocoder built on open data.

• Shines: results can be stored permanently, even after you cancel.
• Lags: the free trial is testing only; paid starts at $50 a month.

7. Nominatim

The free, open-source geocoder behind OpenStreetMap.

• Shines: free, and you can host it yourself.
• Lags: the public server allows 1 request per second and no heavy use.

8. ApyHub address and location APIs

ApyHub covers geocoding with several catalog APIs on one subscription: Address Validation (forward geocoding with match scores), Reverse Address Lookup, Address Parsing and Address Search.

• Shines: one key for geocoding plus email, phone and other validation; dedicated EU region; every endpoint callable by AI agents.
• Lags: small free tier (5 calls a day); about $4.20 per 1,000 on the Pro+ plan, more than HERE.

Try the ApyHub address APIs free →

06Geocoding with EU data residency

If you prefer to keep address data in Europe, your options are HERE (Netherlands), OpenCage (Germany), LocationIQ's EU data center, and ApyHub, a Dutch company whose EU region (api.eu.apyhub.com) keeps requests in the EU.

07Geocoding from AI assistants with MCP

Every API in the ApyHub catalog, including the geocoding APIs above, is available through ApyHub MCP. Ask Claude to "geocode these 200 store addresses and flag the bad ones" and it calls a ready-made endpoint, with no wrapper code. That means consistent results and fewer tokens than having the assistant write the code.

ApyHub MCP works with Claude, ChatGPT (listed as "ApyHub EU"), Cursor, VS Code and Mistral Le Chat, which supports any remote MCP server on all plans. For teams that want Europe end to end, Le Chat plus ApyHub's EU server (mcp.eu.apyhub.com) means a European assistant calling EU-hosted tools.

Connect ApyHub MCP in under 5 minutes →

08Conclusion

There is no single best geocoding API. Use Mapbox or HERE for the largest free tiers, Google for the hardest addresses, Geoapify or LocationIQ to ship on a free plan, and OpenCage if you need to keep results. Choose ApyHub when geocoding is one step in a bigger flow, when you need an EU region, or when an AI assistant should run the lookups.

Start free on ApyHub, no card required →

09FAQ

Is there a free geocoding API?

Yes. Mapbox (100,000 a month), HERE (30,000 a month), Geoapify (3,000 a day) and LocationIQ (5,000 a day) all have free tiers. Nominatim is free at 1 request a second.

Is Google's Geocoding API free?

Up to 10,000 requests a month. After that it costs $5.00 per 1,000.

What is reverse geocoding?

Turning coordinates into the nearest address. Most geocoding APIs offer it alongside forward geocoding.

Which geocoding API is best for the EU?

HERE, OpenCage and ApyHub are European. ApyHub also has a dedicated EU region.

How can I test a geocoding API before writing code?

Use the playground on each ApyHub API page, or save requests in Voiden, an offline-first API client that keeps them as Markdown files in your repo.

Can AI agents use geocoding APIs?

Yes. With ApyHub MCP, Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Mistral Le Chat can call geocoding APIs directly.

10About ApyHub

ApyHub is a curated API catalog and the trusted operational layer between your application and the services it depends on. One subscription, billed in atoms, covers the whole catalog of over 1,500 endpoints and capabilities, and it keeps growing. Every service is evaluated before it is listed and carries machine-readable certification covering GDPR, SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Every endpoint is MCP-ready by default. ApyHub runs dedicated EU and US regions and serves more than 65,000 developer workspaces every month. Start on the free tier with no card, or publish your own API on ApyHub.

11Sources

• Google Maps Platform, Pricing and Geocoding usage and billing (October 2026)
• Mapbox pricing · HERE Base plan · Geoapify pricing · LocationIQ pricing · OpenCage pricing
• OpenStreetMap Foundation, Nominatim usage policy
• Mistral AI, Le Chat MCP connectors (September 2, 2025)