# Local Business Finder (OpenStreetMap, free Maps alternative) (`larkmoor/osm-local-businesses`) Actor

Every restaurant, cafe, dentist, gym, hotel, shop, lawyer, car repair... in a city or neighbourhood from OpenStreetMap: name, brand, address, phone, website, email, opening hours, cuisine, coordinates and every tag the community mapped, plus a map link. 50 ready categories or any custom tag. A free,

- **URL**: https://apify.com/larkmoor/osm-local-businesses.md
- **Developed by:** [Larkmoor Data](https://apify.com/larkmoor) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Travel
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.85 / 1,000 places

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Local Business Finder (OpenStreetMap, free Maps alternative)

Every restaurant, cafe, dentist, gym, hotel, shop, lawyer, car repair... in a city or neighbourhood from OpenStreetMap: name, brand, address, phone, website, email, opening hours, cuisine, coordinates and every tag the community mapped, plus a map link. 50 ready categories or any custom tag. A free, open-data alternative to map scrapers for lead lists, store locators, market sizing and geo analysis. Data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

### What you can use it for

- Lead lists: every dentist, gym, restaurant or law office in a city with phone and website, for a fraction of the cost of map scrapers
- Market sizing and site selection: count competitors by neighbourhood, with coordinates for your own map
- Store locators and directories: seed a database of places for a region
- Travel and local apps: cafes, attractions, parks, EV chargers with opening hours

### Why this one

- Open data from OpenStreetMap, legally reusable with attribution (ODbL): no terms-of-service risk
- 50 ready categories (restaurant, cafe, bar, hotel, dentist, doctor, pharmacy, gym, hairdresser, car repair, bank, lawyer, accountant, real estate, supermarket, bakery, clothes, electronics, school, church, fuel, EV charging, tourism...) plus any custom tag filter
- Clean columns (name, address parts, phone, website, email, opening hours, cuisine, lat/lon, map link) and the full tag set for anything else
- Pay only for results: **$1.00 per 1,000 places**. No subscription.

### Input

- **Areas (city, neighbourhood, region)** (`areas`): e.g. 'Brooklyn, New York', 'Manchester, UK', 'Tel Aviv'. One query per area.
- **Or: bounding box \[south, west, north, east]** (`boundingBox`)
- **Categories** (`categories`) Default: `["restaurant"]`.
- **Custom OSM tag filter (advanced)** (`customTagFilter`): An Overpass tag filter, e.g. \["amenity"="ice_cream"] or \["shop"="bicycle"]
- **Only places with a name** (`namedOnly`) Default: `true`.
- **Max places per area × category** (`maxPerQuery`) Default: `2000`.
- **Max places total** (`maxResults`) Default: `5000`.

### Output

One row per place in the dataset (JSON, CSV, Excel, or through the API). Sample:

```json
[
 {
  "osmId": "node/1030333135",
  "category": "cafe",
  "name": "Empire Coffee & Tea Co.",
  "brand": null,
  "type": "cafe",
  "cuisine": "coffee_shop;tea",
  "address": "338 Bloomfield Street, Hoboken, 07030",
  "street": "Bloomfield Street",
  "houseNumber": "338",
  "city": "Hoboken",
  "postcode": "07030",
  "country": null,
  "phone": "+1-212-268-1220",
  "website": "https://www.empirecoffeetea.com/",
  "email": null,
  "openingHours": "Mo-Fr 07:00-20:00; Sa 08:00-19:00; Su 09:00-19:00",
  "facebook": null,
  "instagram": null,
  "wheelchair": null,
  "outdoorSeating": "yes",
  "takeaway": null,
  "delivery": null,
  "lat": 40.7413494,
  "lon": -74.0307015,
  "area": "Hoboken, New Jersey",
  "osmUrl": "https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/1030333135",
  "lastEdited": null,
  "tags": {
   "addr:city": "Hoboken",
   "addr:housenumber": "338",
   "addr:postcode": "07030",
   "addr:state": "NJ",
   "addr:street": "Bloomfield Street",
   "amenity": "cafe",
   "cuisine": "coffee_shop;tea",
   "diet:vegetarian": "yes",
   "name": "Empire Coffee & Tea Co.",
   "opening_hours": "Mo-Fr 07:00-20:00; Sa 08:00-19:00; Su 09:00-19:00",
   "outdoor_seating": "yes",
   "phone": "+1-212-268-1220",
   "website": "https://www.empirecoffeetea.com/"
  }
 },
 {
  "osmId": "node/5335337270",
  "category": "cafe",
  "name": "Gateway Cafe JWO",
  "brand": null,
  "type": "cafe",
  "cuisine": "coffee_shop",
  "address": null,
  "street": null,
  "houseNumber": null,
  "city": null,
  "postcode": null,
  "country": null,
  "phone": null,
  "website": null,
  "email": null,
  "openingHours": null,
  "facebook": null,
  "instagram": null,
  "wheelchair": "yes",
  "outdoorSeating": "no",
  "takeaway": null,
  "delivery": null,
  "lat": 40.7432995,
  "lon": -74.0275099,
  "area": "Hoboken, New Jersey",
  "osmUrl": "https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/5335337270",
  "lastEdited": null,
  "tags": {
   "amenity": "cafe",
   "cuisine": "coffee_shop",
   "diet:vegan": "yes",
   "diet:vegetarian": "yes",
   "name": "Gateway Cafe JWO",
   "outdoor_seating": "no",
   "smoking": "no",
   "wheelchair": "yes"
  }
 }
]
```

### Tips

- Coverage depends on what the community mapped: dense in cities and in Europe, thinner in small towns; phone/website are present for a share of places, not all.
- Large areas × many categories can hit Overpass limits; split by neighbourhood or run categories separately. The tool retries on two public Overpass servers.
- Attribution: when you publish the data, credit © OpenStreetMap contributors.

### Integrations and API

Run it on a schedule, trigger it from the API or a webhook, and send results to Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, Slack, a database or your own code with the platform's standard integrations.

### Data and fair use

This tool reads only public sources (official APIs, public feeds or pages the publisher makes available to everyone) and respects robots.txt and rate limits. You are responsible for using the data in line with the source's terms and applicable law.

### How much it costs

You pay per result (pay-per-event), nothing per month and nothing when a run returns nothing. The price is **$1.00 per 1,000 places** on the Free plan, with automatic discounts on paid plans (Bronze −5%, Silver −10%, Gold −15%, Platinum −20%).

Worked examples:

- 100 places → **$0.10**
- 1,000 places → **$1.00**
- 10,000 places → **$10.00**
- Plus $0.001 per run start.

Platform usage (compute, storage) is included in the price: the actor runs at a small memory setting by default, so a typical run of 1,000 places finishes in well under a minute.

### FAQ

**Why are phone/website empty on many rows?**

OpenStreetMap only has the details volunteers mapped. In large US and EU cities roughly a third to a half of businesses carry a phone or website; in small towns fewer. Turn on `requireContact` to keep only rows with contact details.

**Can I use the data commercially?**

Yes. OpenStreetMap data is under the ODbL licence: you can use it commercially, you must credit OpenStreetMap contributors, and a derived database you publish must stay under the same licence. No Google Maps terms apply because nothing comes from Google.

**Why are some fields empty?**

A field is `null` when the source does not publish it for that row. The output keeps every column so your spreadsheet or integration always sees the same shape.

**Can I run it on a schedule?**

Yes. Use Apify Schedules (daily, hourly, cron) and connect the run to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, a webhook or the API. Each run writes a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV or Excel.

**Is there a free trial?**

The Apify Free plan includes $5 of monthly platform credit, enough to try this actor on a few hundred results at no cost. There is no subscription for the actor itself.

**Can an AI agent use this?**

Yes. The actor is available through Apify's MCP server and the API, so LLM agents (Claude, ChatGPT, LangChain, CrewAI) can call it as a tool with the same input.

**What happens if something fails?**

Runs log every skipped item with a reason. If the source is down, the actor stops cleanly and you are only charged for the results it returned.

### Changelog

- **2026-10-18** — Lower price with Bronze/Silver/Gold discounts; smaller default memory (cheaper runs); clean table view of results; FAQ and cost examples; new `requireContact` filter for lead lists; first release.

### Support

Found a problem or need a field added? Open an issue on the Issues tab; it is read and answered.

# Actor input Schema

## `areas` (type: `array`):

e.g. 'Brooklyn, New York', 'Manchester, UK', 'Tel Aviv'. One query per area.

## `boundingBox` (type: `array`):

Or: bounding box \[south, west, north, east].

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

Categories. Default: \["restaurant"].

## `customTagFilter` (type: `string`):

An Overpass tag filter, e.g. \["amenity"="ice_cream"] or \["shop"="bicycle"]

## `namedOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Only places with a name. Default: true.

## `maxPerQuery` (type: `integer`):

Max places per area × category. Default: 2000. (min 1, max 50000)

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

Max places total. Default: 5000. (min 1)

## `requireContact` (type: `boolean`):

Skip places that carry no contact details in OpenStreetMap (typically 30–60% of places in US cities have a phone or website; small towns less). Good for lead lists; off = every place, contact fields may be empty.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "areas": [
    "Hoboken, New Jersey"
  ],
  "categories": [
    "restaurant"
  ],
  "namedOnly": true,
  "maxPerQuery": 2000,
  "maxResults": 2000,
  "requireContact": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All results as JSON items in the run's default dataset (also downloadable as CSV/Excel from the dataset).

# 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 = {
    "areas": [
        "Hoboken, New Jersey"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("larkmoor/osm-local-businesses").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 = { "areas": ["Hoboken, New Jersey"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("larkmoor/osm-local-businesses").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 '{
  "areas": [
    "Hoboken, New Jersey"
  ]
}' |
apify call larkmoor/osm-local-businesses --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/PBkkOWGo2aylJIpbu/builds/SmzzQrhbuJQz2ZUzO/openapi.json