Businesses close temporarily for a wide range of reasons. They might be under renovation, impacted by a natural disaster, closed for the summer, or–like now–be closed in response to a pandemic. To provide the most accurate representation of the real world through Google Maps Platform-powered experiences, we’re now making temporary closure information available through the Places API.  

Armed with real time information about businesses and other locations, our customers can fulfill a variety of services with a high degree of accuracy. From food delivery, to ride sharing, to logistics, having access to the latest information about the operational status of a business can make or break the experience of our customers and their end users. 

Introducing business_status in Place Search and Place Details

You can now access the operational status of a business via a new field named business_status. This field can have three possible values: OPERATIONAL, CLOSED_TEMPORARILY and CLOSED_PERMANENTLY. When we don’t know the operational status of a business, the business_status field is not returned. 

You can access business_status through Place Search and Place Details requests. All calls to Nearby Search, and Text Search return most place data fields including business status if the information is available. For Find Place requests searching for a specific place, you'll need to specify business_status in the fields parameter to receive that data back in the response. When you request information about a place through Place Details directly or through a Place Autocomplete widget, include business_status in the fields parameter.

Here is an example of requesting business status through the Places Library, Maps JavaScript API. 

Place Details request (JavaScript):

const request = {
  placeId: 'ChIJ9xzt5AYVkFQRTSTBq6a4nWc',
  fields: ['name', 'business_status']
};

const service = new google.maps.places.PlacesService(map);
service.getDetails(request, callback);

Handling the response:

function callback(place, status) {
    if (status !== google.maps.places.PlacesServiceStatus.OK) return;
    if (place.business_status) {
        console.log(`${place.name} is currently ${place.business_status}.`);
    }
}

For more information about other languages, see the video below.

Replacing permanently_closed

Place Search and Place Details both currently support a field called permanently_closed, but it doesn’t distinguish between a business or location that is closed permanently or closed temporarily. An application that relies on the ability to distinguish between those values shouldn’t use it. Due to the potential for confusion, we strongly encourage developers to use business_status instead. Since existing applications may be using permanently_closed to determine whether a place is closed for any reason, the Places API will continue returning permanently_closed as is. 

Related field: opening_hours

If a business is operational, you may want to display its daily opening hours or indicate whether it is open now or at a specific time. For that information, use the field opening_hours with Place Details. For more information about opening hours in Places API, see our recent video demonstrating how to use the field with HTTP requests, JavaScript, Kotlin, and Swift.

Representing the physical world accurately

To keep up with a dynamic world, we work hard to keep our maps, roads, and places information up to date. We rely on information from governments and other authoritative sources, as well as businesses themselves, to surface temporary closures. Businesses can also mark their location as temporarily closed and update hours via Google My Business so that accurate business info appears in Google Maps, Search and the Places API.  

Accurate business information can make the difference between a successful journey and a wasted trip–and ultimately, customer satisfaction. For more information on business_status and related fields, please visit our documentation. 

For more information on Google Maps Platform, visit our website.