# Local Business Finder (OpenStreetMap) (`apexfaucetdotxyz/local-business-finder`) Actor

Find local businesses by area and category with website, phone and address. Open data — no blocking, no proxy cost, no terms-of-service exposure.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/apexfaucetdotxyz/local-business-finder.md
- **Developed by:** [Martin Raum](https://apify.com/apexfaucetdotxyz) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Business, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Local Business Finder (OpenStreetMap)

Find local businesses by area and category — **name, website, phone, address,
opening hours, coordinates**. This is the top of the lead pipeline.

### Why open data instead of scraping a maps product

- **No blocking, no proxy cost.** Nothing to be rate-limited out of.
- **No terms-of-service exposure for you or your client.** OpenStreetMap is
  licensed for reuse under ODbL; attribution is included in every record.
- **Honest trade-off:** coverage is thinner than a commercial map, and varies by
  region and category. The run summary reports exactly how many records carried a
  website and a phone, so an empty result is never mistaken for "no businesses here".

### Built for reliability

Overpass is community-run and returns 504 under load — during development a
single endpoint failed three times in a row and made the whole approach look
impossible. This rotates **four mirrors** with retries before giving up.

It also queries both `node` and `way` and de-duplicates, because a business
mapped as a building footprint and as a point would otherwise appear twice.

### Input

| field | notes |
|---|---|
| `location` | "Brighton, UK" — geocoded to a bounding box for you |
| `categories` | 30 supported, from `accountant` and `lawyer` to `plumber` and `bakery` |
| `onlyWithWebsite` | recommended when piping into the lead finder |
| `maxResults` | up to 1000 |
| `bbox` | `[south, west, north, east]` if you want exact control |

### The pipeline

```
Local Business Finder  →  websites  →  Business Contact & Lead Finder  →  named people
```

Run this to get the companies, then feed the `website` column into the **Business
Contact & Lead Finder**, which crawls each site and returns decision-makers with
job titles, emails, phones and LinkedIn pages.

Attribution: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL.

# Actor input Schema

## `location` (type: `string`):

Town, city or region, e.g. "Brighton, UK" or "Valencia, Spain". Resolved to a bounding box automatically.

## `categories` (type: `array`):

One or more categories. Each maps to several OpenStreetMap tags, because OSM splits businesses across amenity/shop/office/craft — matching only one tag misses most of the market.

## `onlyWithWebsite` (type: `boolean`):

Recommended when feeding the Business Contact & Lead Finder — a business with no website cannot be enriched.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of businesses to return.

## `bbox` (type: `array`):

\[south, west, north, east]. Overrides Location if given.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "location": "Brighton, UK",
  "categories": [
    "accountant",
    "lawyer",
    "estate_agent"
  ],
  "onlyWithWebsite": false,
  "maxResults": 200
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `dataset` (type: `string`):

Named businesses with website, phone and address.

## `overview` (type: `string`):

Browse the results as a table.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "location": "Brighton, UK",
    "categories": [
        "accountant",
        "lawyer",
        "estate_agent"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("apexfaucetdotxyz/local-business-finder").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "location": "Brighton, UK",
    "categories": [
        "accountant",
        "lawyer",
        "estate_agent",
    ],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("apexfaucetdotxyz/local-business-finder").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "location": "Brighton, UK",
  "categories": [
    "accountant",
    "lawyer",
    "estate_agent"
  ]
}' |
apify call apexfaucetdotxyz/local-business-finder --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,apexfaucetdotxyz/local-business-finder"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/GMQQRfWOdKVtEMz8d/builds/8gT3D1b8XahB1tSWl/openapi.json