We are in principle happy for our map tiles to be used by external users for creative and unexpected uses – in contrast to most web mapping providers, which insist that you use only their supplied API.
However, OpenStreetMap’s own servers are run entirely on donated resources. They have strictly limited capacity. Heavy use of OSM tiles adversely affects people’s ability to edit the map, and is an abuse of the individual donations and sponsorship which provide hardware and bandwidth. As a result, we require that users of the tiles abide by this tile usage policy.
OpenStreetMap data is free for everyone to use. Our tile servers are not.
Below are the minimum requirements that users of vector.openstreetmap.org must adhere to. These may change in future, depending on available resources. Should any users or patterns of usage nevertheless cause problems to the service, access may still be blocked without prior notice. We will try to contact relevant parties if possible, but cannot guarantee this.
Although our map tiles are generally very reliable, their availability to others is on a best effort basis and we offer no SLA or guarantees.
Because OpenStreetMap data is free, many other organisations provide map tiles made from OSM data. If your project doesn’t meet our requirements, you can get Shortbread tiles elsewhere.
Use of any OSMF provided service is further governed by the OSMF Terms of Use.
The correct URL for the tiles is https://vector.openstreetmap.org/$VERSION/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.mvt or the tilejson at https://vector.openstreetmap.org/$VERSION/tilejson.json. We are unable to offer support on how to make your preferred map library work with this URL and recommend you consult its documentation.
Note: modern web browsers in standard configuration pass all the above technical requirements.
Bulk downloading (“scraping”) is the downloading of tiles in advance instead of downloading when a user views those tiles. Common examples include creating a tile archive or downloading for offline usage. Bulk downloading is prohibited. Other providers have bulk tiles available as packages.
We generally do not recommend setting up a caching service in front of vector.openstreetmap.org. If you decide to do so it must set a HTTP User-Agent that allows us to contact you in case of issues.
Use of all services is subject to the OpenStreetMap Foundation privacy policy. Please do not submit personal data or other confidential material to any of our services.
We publish anonymised, summarised data for research and other purposes about usage of the tile service.
This policy may change at any time subject to the needs and constraints of the project. Commercial services, or those that seek donations, should be especially aware that access may be withdrawn at any point: you may no longer be able to serve your paying customers if access is withdrawn.
We will try to offer new tiles immediately after the release of a new major version of Shortbread. After a new set of tiles is released we will attempt to offer the old tiles with updates for one month and continue to make the tiles available without updates for an additional two months.