Bing Places for Business: how to get your business on Bing Maps, step by step (2026 UK guide)

TL;DR: Bing Places for Business is Microsoft’s free tool for your listing on Bing and Bing Maps. The quickest route is to import your Google Business Profile: if Google has verified you, Bing verifies the listing automatically and publishes it in about 7 to 12 days. After that, edit your details in Google, keep them identical everywhere, and collect reviews, because Bing ranks local listings on relevance, distance and popularity.

Key takeaways

• Bing Places for Business is free, and it controls how your business appears on Bing search and Bing Maps.
• The fastest route is to import your Google Business Profile. If Google has already verified you, Bing verifies the imported listing automatically.
• Publishing usually takes 7 to 12 calendar days after verification, and editing the listing while it processes can delay it.
• Once a listing is linked to Google, you edit it in Google and let the sync carry the change to Bing.
• Bing held 6.76% of UK searches in October 2026, according to StatCounter, and DuckDuckGo, Copilot and ChatGPT search all draw on it.
• Bing ranks local listings on relevance, distance and popularity, and popularity includes reviews on sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor.

Many small businesses set up a Google Business Profile and stop there. Bing is the second search engine in the UK, and the listing that shows there is controlled by a separate free tool, Bing Places for Business. If you have never claimed it, Bing can still show a listing for you, built from information it has gathered elsewhere.

This guide covers both ways to add your business to Bing, how verification and publishing work, what Bing itself says decides local ranking, and the catches we hit when we imported our own Google Business Profile in October 2026. Every rule quoted here comes from Bing’s own help pages, read on 2 November 2026.

What is Bing Places for Business?

Bing Places for Business is Microsoft’s free service for claiming an existing listing on Bing, or adding a new one, so that you control the details customers see. Your Bing business listing appears in Bing search results and on Bing Maps, with your address, phone number, opening hours, website and photos.

Bing’s introduction to Bing Places lists three things it does for local businesses: more visibility in local Bing search results, accurate business details, and verified ownership of the listing. It works for businesses with a shop or office that customers visit, and for service businesses that travel to their customers, which can hide their address from the public listing.

Bing also checks what you submit. The same page says Bing compares the details business owners give with information found across search engines, websites and social media, and recommends keeping your name, address, phone number and website consistent on every channel.

Why does Bing matter for a UK business?

Bing is small next to Google, but it is the clear second. StatCounter’s figures for the UK in October 2026 put Google at 90.59% of searches and Bing at 6.76%, ahead of Yahoo at 1.37%, DuckDuckGo at 0.7% and Ecosia at 0.31%.

The 6.76% understates Bing’s reach, because other services draw on it:

• DuckDuckGo. Its help page on result sources says its traditional links and images are largely sourced from Bing, alongside its own crawler.
• ChatGPT search. Microsoft announced in May 2023 that Bing was coming to ChatGPT as the default search experience. Our guide on how to get your business on ChatGPT explains what that means for local businesses.
• Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft’s own AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, launched on 10 February 2026, counts how often your pages are cited in Copilot and in Bing’s AI summaries.

For a business that sells locally, a few percent of searches is still real customers, and the listing costs nothing.

How do you add your business to Bing?

There are two routes. You can import your Google Business Profile, which copies your details across and verifies the listing automatically if Google has already verified you. Or you can search Bing for your business, then claim the listing if one exists or create a new one, and verify it by phone, text message, email or postcard.

Importing suits almost every business that already has a verified Google profile. Adding it by hand suits a business with no Google profile, or one whose Google details are wrong and need fixing first, because an import copies mistakes across too.

Route 1: import your Google Business Profile, step by step

Bing’s page on syncing your Google Business Profile gives four steps. Sign in to Bing Places first. We used our Google account.

1. In your Bing Places account, select Import from your Google Business Profile.
2. Choose whether to sync weekly, every two weeks or monthly.
3. Sign in to the Google account that manages your profile.
4. Import the listings Bing detects.

Bing copies across your business name, address, phone number, opening hours, photos and other details it can read. If your business is already verified in Google Business Profile, Bing verifies the imported listing automatically, and it moves into the standard publishing process, which Bing says typically takes 7 to 12 days. During that time the dashboard shows Pending Publish, and the listing can appear live on Bing before the dashboard catches up.

Read the small print before you import. Bing says you cannot choose which listings to import, because it detects every eligible listing in your Google account, and that syncing can create duplicates when a listing for you already exists on Bing. Some fields do not sync exactly, including categories and Google UTM tags, so check both by hand afterwards.

The biggest catch is editing. Bing’s page says direct editing is not currently available in the dashboard for listings linked to a Google Business Profile. You change the details in Google, and the next sync carries them to your Bing business listing. Turning sync off stops future updates, but it does not unlink the profile.

Route 2: claim or create your listing by hand

Bing’s guide to creating your listing starts with a search, because a listing may already exist. Bing says listings often receive information from several outside sources, so your business may already have one you never made. Claim yours rather than creating a second.

1. Sign in to Bing Places for Business.
2. Choose your country, then search for your business name and location.
3. If your listing exists and nobody has claimed it, claim it. If someone else has claimed it, request access from them.
4. If several results appear, pick the one at your address and report any duplicates.
5. If nothing comes up, select Create a new business and enter your details.
6. Verify the listing. Bing’s FAQ lists phone, text message and email, and a postcard with a PIN.

Bing’s frequently asked questions say the postcard usually arrives in 5 to 6 days and can take up to 12 business days. Nothing you change goes live until the listing is verified, so finish verification before polishing the details.

If your business has moved, do not claim the old listing and change its address. Bing recommends creating a new listing at the new address and marking the old one as closed.

How long does Bing Places take to publish a listing?

Bing says a verified listing usually takes 7 to 12 calendar days to appear live, with extra time for every detail to show across search results. One of its pages gives up to two weeks outside North America. If your listing is still unpublished after 12 calendar days, Bing asks you to contact its support team.

Two habits slow things down. Bing says frequent changes while a listing is processing can delay publishing, and later updates to details, photos or hours go through the same 7 to 12 day cycle. Make your changes in one sitting, then leave the listing alone until it is live.

What we learned importing our own listing

We added Digimpact to Bing on 19 October 2026 by importing our Google Business Profile with a weekly sync. The listing was verified the moment it was imported, as Bing describes, and our description, photos and 20 service areas came across from Google without retyping. Then it went into Pending Publish.

The catch came when we tried to finish the listing. Bing had locked the name, phone number, website and address to the Google import, and the basic details form refused to save, without any error message. The cause was our phone number. Google held it in the local 07 format, and Bing’s form treated the imported number as invalid, which blocked every other field on the form, including adding an email address and a tracking tag on the website link.

Bing will not let you edit an imported number, so the fix belongs in Google: write the number there in international format, starting +44, and let the next sync carry it across. If your import will not save, check the phone number first.

What makes a complete Bing business listing?

A complete listing gives Bing the facts it needs to match you to a search. Bing’s ranking page says that adding detailed business information helps its algorithm match your listing with what people search for, and that results are retrieved from Bing’s own database, so missing details stay missing.

Before you leave the listing to publish, check that it has:

• your business name exactly as it appears on your sign and your Google profile
• a full street address, because Bing does not accept a PO Box
• your service areas, if you travel to customers. Bing allows up to 20 and lets you hide your address
• a phone number in the same format everywhere, which for an import means +44
• your website address and opening hours
• the right categories, checked by hand because they may not sync from Google
• photos and a description that says what you do and where

Our guide to setting up a Google Business Profile covers each of these fields on the Google side. If you import, getting Google right first saves fixing Bing twice.

How does Bing rank local business listings?

Bing ranks local listings on three things: relevance, distance and popularity. Relevance is how well your listing matches the search, distance is how far you are from the person searching, and popularity comes from web signals such as reviews, ratings and mentions of your business on other websites.

Bing’s page on how it ranks listings adds detail on each. It says website SEO plays an important role in local ranking, so a slow or thin website holds back the listing. On popularity, it says listings with more positive reviews and ratings on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor count as more popular, and that the more a business is mentioned across the web, the more likely it is to appear.

Bing’s own advice, if your listing gets little traffic, is to make the Bing Places data complete and accurate, follow SEO best practice on your website, and list the business on trusted websites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor. Our local SEO checklist covers the website side, and our guide on how to respond to Google reviews helps with the reviews you already have.

Moving, renaming or closing: what Bing says to do

Bing treats a move or a new name as a new business. Its FAQ says you should not update an old listing with new details, because the old listing stays connected to data sources tied to the previous address, and changing it can create conflicts that stop your updates from showing.

Create a new listing with the new name or address, then mark the old one as closed. Bing says there is no Business Moved status in Bing Maps. A listing marked closed gradually loses visibility and stops appearing first in results, although someone searching for the exact old name and address may still see it for a while.

If you close for good, mark the listing as closed in Bing Places, and update the same detail on Google, review sites and other map apps, which Bing also recommends.

Common Bing Places problems and how to fix them

Most problems come from duplicates, verification and the Google link. These are the ones Bing’s FAQ covers, plus the one we hit ourselves:

• Your listing is marked as a duplicate. The editing panel is disabled on a duplicate. Claim the published listing instead, or ask whoever has claimed it to give you access.
• The postcard has not arrived. Bing suggests contacting your local post office, then its support team if the card cannot be found.
• Nothing has published after 12 days. Contact Bing Places support, and stop editing in the meantime.
• You cannot edit anything. If the listing is linked to Google, edit it in Google and wait for the sync.
• The form will not save after an import. Check the phone number on your Google profile and change it to +44 format.

Do you need Bing Webmaster Tools as well?

Yes, if you want Bing to find your website as well as your listing. Bing Places controls the listing on Bing Maps, while Bing Webmaster Tools controls how Bing crawls and indexes your website: you submit your sitemap there, check which pages are indexed, and see the AI Performance report on citations in Copilot.

Setting up Bing Webmaster Tools takes a few minutes if you already use Google Search Console, because it can import your verified sites from Search Console. We added our own site that way on 14 October 2026. If your site is missing from search results altogether, our guide to why a website is not showing on Google covers the indexing checks that apply to Bing too.

What to do this week

Six jobs, in this order:

1. Search Bing for your business name and town, and note what it shows today.
2. Fix your Google Business Profile first: name, address, hours, categories, and a phone number in +44 format.
3. Sign in to Bing Places for Business and import your Google Business Profile, or claim the listing by hand.
4. Check the categories and the website link on the Bing listing once the import finishes.
5. Leave the listing alone for 7 to 12 days while it publishes, then check it on Bing Maps.
6. Add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap.

If you would rather someone checked the whole picture, our free website check looks at your site and listings together.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bing Places for Business free?

Yes. Bing describes Bing Places for Business as a free Bing service. You need an account to sign in, and Google sign-in works, which is how we set up ours.

Do I need a Google Business Profile to use Bing Places?

No. Importing from Google is optional. You can search for your business on Bing, then claim the listing or create a new one, and verify it by phone, text message, email or postcard.

How long does Bing Places verification take?

An import from a verified Google profile is verified automatically. By hand, you verify by phone, text message, email or postcard, and Bing says a postcard PIN usually arrives in 5 to 6 days and can take up to 12 business days. Publishing then takes 7 to 12 calendar days.

Can I hide my address on Bing Maps?

Yes. If customers do not visit you, you can hide the address from the public listing and add up to 20 service areas. Bing still needs the address for verification, and it does not accept a PO Box.

Why can I not edit my Bing Places listing?

The usual reasons are that the listing is linked to your Google Business Profile, so changes must be made in Google, that it is marked as a duplicate, or that it is not verified yet. Bing gives full editing only after verification.

Does Bing Places help my business show up in ChatGPT?

It can help. Bing is one of the search providers behind ChatGPT search, and complete, consistent listings give AI answers accurate details to repeat. Nobody can guarantee a place in an answer, but a missing or wrong Bing listing works against you.

Want help getting found on Google and Bing?

We set up and look after Google and Bing listings for UK small businesses, alongside websites that answer what customers search for. See our local SEO service, or start with a free website check and we will tell you what is holding your business back in search.