Best geocoding providers for Spain
Spain 🇪🇸 benefits from a strong combination of global commercial geocoding services and an authoritative national open-data geocoder. In this article, we compare the main geocoding providers for Spain, focusing on address accuracy, coverage in urban and rural areas, POI coverage, pricing, and licensing.
Table of contents
Provider comparison summary
Here is a summary table of the top geocoding providers for Spain:
| Provider | Accuracy | Coverage | POI Coverage | Free Tier | Pricing for 1,000 requests | Storage Allowed | Key Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CartoCiudad |
⭐ Excellent (authoritative) |
⭐ Excellent (all Spain) |
None (addresses only) |
FREE | FREE |
✅ Yes (fully open) |
Official Spanish data, free, no restrictions |
| Google Maps |
⭐ Excellent (rooftop) |
⭐ Excellent (urban & rural) |
🏆 Best (massive Places DB) |
40k/month |
$5.00 |
❌ No (30 days cache max) |
Most comprehensive POI data, handles messy queries |
| HERE |
⭐ Excellent (rooftop) |
⭐ Excellent (urban & rural) |
Very Good | 30k/month | $1.00 |
⚠️ Possible (enterprise only) |
High free tier, flexible map display |
| TomTom |
⭐ Excellent (rooftop) |
⭐ Excellent (urban & rural) |
Very Good | ~75k/month | $0.75 | ❌ No | Strong European data, competitive pricing |
| Mapbox | Very Good | Very Good |
Good (OSM-based) |
100k/month | $0.75-$5.00 |
⚠️ Possible (permanent plan only) |
Generous free tier, flexible usage |
| OpenCage |
Very Good (BAN + OSM-based) |
⭐ Excellent |
Good (OSM-based) |
75k/month | ~$0.17 | ✅ Yes | Best of open data, managed service, cheap |
| Nominatim (OSM) | Good | Very Good | Good |
FREE (1 req/sec) |
FREE (self-host) |
✅ Yes (fully open) |
Open data, community-driven, self-hostable |
Spanish providers
CartoCiudad – Spanish Government API
cartociudad.es
CartoCiudad is Spain's official national address database maintained by IGN Spain (CNIG) in collaboration with Catastro and local authorities. It provides authoritative, accurate address locations across all of Spain, including rural areas and small municipalities. Coordinates are usually at rooftop or parcel level, not interpolated. However, it is strict: it does not tolerate typos or incomplete addresses well and has no POI coverage.
Pricing: Completely free via the CartoCiudad API. No charge, no quotas. You can also download the dataset for free. (Source - January 2026)
Rate limits: Not publicly disclosed, but generally permissive for normal use.
Licensing: Open data under Spanish open government license. You can store, reuse, and redistribute the coordinates freely with attribution. No restrictions on map display or commercial use.
Why relevant for Spain: CartoCiudad is the authoritative Spanish national address database maintained by IGN Spain (CNIG) in collaboration with Catastro and local authorities. It provides official, highly accurate address locations across all of Spain, including rural areas and small municipalities. Coordinates are usually at rooftop or parcel level, not interpolated. It is the reference dataset for administrative and professional uses in Spain. However, it is strict: it does not tolerate typos or incomplete addresses well and has very limited POI coverage.
Common providers
Google Geocoding API (Places API)
developers.google.com/maps
Google's geocoding is widely considered the industry standard with exceptional global coverage and accuracy. It excels at parsing addresses even when they contain typos or are incomplete, thanks to advanced natural language processing. Coverage is excellent across both urban and rural areas, and it offers unmatched POI coverage for restaurants, landmarks, shops, and more. However this has a cost: pricing is relatively expensive for high volumes and license is restrictive.
Pricing: $5 per 1,000 requests after free tier. Free tier: 40,000 requests/month. Prices decrease as volume increases. (Source - October 2025)
Rate limits: 3,000 requests per minute in documentation, i.e. 50 requests per second. (October 2025)
Licensing: Google's terms are restrictive. Results cannot be stored permanently outside of Google's platform; you may cache them for up to 30 days for performance, but long-term storage or use in a database is disallowed. Results must also be displayed on a Google map.
Why relevant for Spain: Google's geocoding is among the best worldwide and performs extremely well in Spain. It handles incomplete or slightly incorrect addresses gracefully and provides excellent coverage in both cities and rural areas. Its POI coverage is unmatched, including restaurants, shops, landmarks, and user-generated places. The main downsides are pricing at scale and restrictive licensing, especially regarding result storage.
Coverage, pricing, and more details about Google Maps Geocoding API
HERE Geocoding API (HERE WeGo)
developer.here.com
HERE's geocoding delivers excellent accuracy with rooftop-level precision across both urban and rural areas. It has a comprehensive POI database covering landmarks and businesses, though slightly less extensive than Google's. Many automotive navigation systems worldwide rely on HERE data, which speaks to its quality and reliability for location-based services.
Pricing: $1 per 1,000 requests after free tier. Free tier: 30,000 requests/month. Prices decrease as volume increases. (Source - October 2025)
Rate limits: Not publicly disclosed.
Licensing: Standard plans don't allow permanent storage of results. An enterprise license is required to store geocoding results permanently. However, unlike Google, you can display results on any map platform.
Why relevant for Spain: HERE provides excellent geocoding accuracy in Spain, with strong rooftop-level precision in urban and rural areas. Its address database is robust and widely used in navigation and automotive systems across Europe. POI coverage is good for landmarks and businesses, though slightly less comprehensive than Google’s. HERE is often chosen as a high-quality commercial alternative with a generous free tier.
TomTom Geocoding
developer.tomtom.com
TomTom delivers excellent geocoding accuracy with rooftop-level precision across global markets. Coverage extends to urban centers and rural areas, including small roads and villages. TomTom's POI database is particularly robust for navigation use-cases (fuel stations, restaurants, attractions), though less comprehensive than Google's user-generated content.
Pricing: $0.75 per 1,000 requests after free tier. Free tier: 2,500 requests/day (~75k/month). (Source - October 2025)
Rate limits: 5 queries per second per API key.
Licensing: Long-term storage is prohibited without special arrangements. However, you can display results on any map platform, not just TomTom or Bing maps.
Why relevant for Spain: TomTom delivers very strong geocoding accuracy in Spain, with complete coverage of cities, towns, and rural road networks. Address resolution is reliable and consistent, and TomTom provides confidence scores for results. POI coverage is solid for navigation-oriented use cases (fuel stations, restaurants, tourist attractions), but less exhaustive than Google’s ecosystem.
Mapbox Geocoding API
www.mapbox.com
Mapbox leverages OpenStreetMap data combined with its own proprietary datasets to deliver very good geocoding accuracy globally. In cities and large towns, it often resolves addresses to exact locations. POI coverage includes major landmarks and many businesses mapped in OSM, though not every establishment is covered. Mapbox differentiates itself from other commercial providers by offering both temporary and permanent storage plans.
Pricing: Temporary geocoding: $0.75 per 1,000 requests after a free tier of 100,000 requests/month. Permanent geocoding: $5 per 1,000 requests, no free tier. Pricing is decreasing as volume increases for both plans. (Source - October 2025)
Rate limits: 1,000 requests/minute in documentation, i.e. 16 requests/second.
Licensing: the permanent geocoding API allows indefinite storage for your own use, but not the temporary geocoding API. You can display results on any map platform.
Why relevant for Spain: Mapbox relies primarily on OpenStreetMap data and provides good geocoding accuracy in Spain, especially in cities and well-mapped areas. Many addresses resolve to rooftop level, but coverage depends on OSM completeness, which can vary in rural zones. POI coverage includes landmarks and businesses mapped in OSM. Mapbox stands out by offering separate pricing for temporary storage and permanent storage of geocoding results.
OpenCage Geocoder
opencagedata.com
OpenCage combines multiple open data sources (OpenStreetMap, OpenAddresses, Geonames) into one unified API. It aggregates the best available open data for each region, typically achieving rooftop-level address accuracy where quality local datasets exist. POI coverage matches OSM's breadth (landmarks, major venues), supplemented by Geonames for natural features, though not as comprehensive as Google's.
Pricing: Starting at $0.15 per 1,000 requests on paid plans (which are subscription-based). Free tier is 2,500 requests/day (~75k/month). Pricing is decreasing as volume increases for the paid plans. (Source - October 2025)
Rate limits: No hard per-second limits on paid plans. ~15 requests/second on higher tiers.
Licensing: Permissive terms allow indefinite storage and caching of results with proper attribution. No requirement to display on a particular map. You get all benefits of open data without setting up your own servers. Explicitly allows building databases of geocoded addresses for commercial use.
Why relevant for Spain: OpenCage aggregates multiple open data sources (OpenStreetMap, OpenAddresses, Geonames). In Spain, address accuracy depends mainly on OSM and available open address datasets, which are generally good but not as authoritative as CartoCiudad. POI coverage reflects OSM’s breadth: good for landmarks and major venues, but not as rich as Google’s. OpenCage is valued for its permissive licensing and simplicity.
Nominatim (OpenStreetMap)
nominatim.openstreetmap.org
Nominatim (the OpenStreetMap geocoding service) delivers good geocoding accuracy, though performance varies by region. In well-mapped urban areas, it often returns rooftop-level precision. Rural coverage depends on local mapping completeness. POI coverage includes landmarks and businesses contributed by volunteers, though less comprehensive than commercial providers.
Pricing: free to use, although costs can apply if you need to host the service yourself.
Rate limits: ~1 request/second, max ~1,000/day for the public API.
Licensing: Highly permissive under ODbL license. You can store and use results freely with attribution ("© OpenStreetMap contributors"). Using coordinates internally is fine. Display on any map platform is allowed.
Why relevant for Spain: Nominatim (the OpenStreetMap geocoding engine) provides solid geocoding results for Spain where OSM data is complete. In major cities and towns, address precision is often high, but rural coverage varies depending on community mapping. Performance and rate limits are constraints on the public service. POI coverage includes landmarks and businesses contributed by volunteers, but is not exhaustive.
Coordable advice: Although really appealing, self-hosting Nominatim is not an easy option. The infrastructure and the expertise to do it are highly underestimated. We recommend using other providers like Mapbox or OpenCage that provide similar or better results for a fair price.
How to choose your geocoding provider for Spain
Pricing is indeed a major factor to consider when choosing a geocoding provider, but it's not the only factor. Your geocoding success rates will also depend on the provider you choose.Things to consider
Here are few things to consider:- Cleanliness: are your addresses error-prone? If yes, you should consider using a provider that can handle messy addresses. Commercial providers are usually better at this than open-source providers.
- Coverage: are your addresses mostly in cities? If not, providers that are used in navigation systems (Google, HERE, TomTom) are good candidates.
- POI Coverage: do you need to geocode restaurants, shops, landmarks, etc.? If yes, a provider like Google Maps is the best candidates.
- Volume: do you have a lot of addresses to geocode? If yes, you should consider using a provider that can handle large volumes (rate limits) with a low price, or open-source providers.
- Licensing: do you need to store the results permanently? If yes, you need to choose a provider that allows you to do so.
Coordable advice for Spain: For Spanish addresses, you should start with the CartoCiudad API whenever possible. It is free, authoritative, and provides excellent coverage across all of Spain, including rural areas. However, it is strict and fails easily on addresses with typos or missing components. A common strategy is to clean and normalize addresses first (for example with Coordable), then geocode with CartoCiudad, and finally fall back to commercial providers like HERE or Google Maps for fuzzy or incomplete inputs.
If you have a lot of addresses to geocode (> 1000) you should do a real comparison between the providers to find the one that performs the best on your data. You can use the Coordable platform to do this easily! ✅
Pricing comparison
Now that you have a clear understanding of each provider's strengths and weaknesses, let's compare their pricing side by side. You can modify the number of addresses to see the pricing estimation:Conclusion
Each provider has its own strengths and weaknesses. We've highlighted their accuracy, coverage (rural vs urban, addresses vs POI), pricing, and whether you can keep the results.
Ultimately, "best" depends on your needs: for a free and legal-to-store solution, go with BAN or an OSM-derived service; for comprehensive one-stop search including every POI, Google Maps API might be worth it despite the price.
Spain benefits from high-quality national address data through CartoCiudad, making open and non-commercial geocoding a serious option. However, for POI-heavy use cases or fuzzy address input, commercial providers still offer clear advantages.
You can now choose the geocoding service that best fits your project's requirements and constraints. 🙂
If you need help to increase your geocoding success rates, the Coordable platform can help you with that! Contact us.