Google Place ID Reverse Lookup: The Complete 2026 Guide to Converting Place IDs Back to Addresses

Here's a fun scenario. You're staring at a spreadsheet full of strings like ChIJgUbEo8cfqokR5lP9WhDaM. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. And somewhere behind each of those cryptic IDs is a real business, with a real address, that you actually need.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Google Place ID reverse lookup.

Google Maps indexes over 200 million businesses globally in 2026 — with 2.2 billion monthly active users and a 67-70% market share in map apps. Every single business gets a unique Place ID. That's great for Google's internal plumbing. Less great for you when a client hands you a CSV dump and says "I need addresses by Friday."

So let's get into it. No fluff, no filler — just the actual methods that work, the ones that don't (spoiler: there are a few), and the shortcuts nobody talks about.

What Is a Google Place ID (And Why Would You Reverse Lookup One)?

A Google Place ID is a unique text identifier that Google assigns to every location in its database. Restaurants, parks, landmarks, that weird dentist office on the corner — they all get one. The format looks like this: ChIJN1ttDeuEmsRUsoyG83frY4. Totally human-readable, right?

The thing is, Place IDs are everywhere. Migration projects spit them out. CRM exports dump them by the thousand. Google My Business feeds are full of them. And if you've ever done any kind of Google Maps scraping, you've got piles of these sitting around.

But a Place ID alone tells you nothing. You need the address, the phone number, the business name — the stuff that's actually useful. That's where a google place id reverse lookup comes in. You feed it the ID, it gives you back structured location data.

Simple concept. Execution? That's where things get interesting.

3 Methods to Convert a Place ID to a Full Address in 2026

You've got a Place ID like ChIJgUbEo8cfqokR5lP9WhDaM. Now what?

There are basically three paths here, and they range from "full developer mode" to "I just need this done in 10 minutes." Let's break them down.

Method 1: Google Geocoding API

The classic approach. Google's Geocoding API accepts a Place ID as input and returns the formatted address, lat/long coordinates, and address components. It's reliable, well-documented, and the go-to method for most developers doing a place id to address conversion.

You pass place_id=ChIJ... as a parameter to the reverse geocoding endpoint, and you get structured JSON back. Done.

The catch? You need an API key. And if you're converting more than a handful of IDs, you need to think about rate limits and costs. (More on that in the pricing section.)

Method 2: Place Details API (New)

Google killed the legacy Places API. Gone. The Place Details (New) is now the only version, and honestly, it's better for a full google place id reverse lookup. Why? Because it returns way more than just the address.

Business name, hours, reviews, photos, website URL — the whole package. If you need to convert place id to address AND grab additional business data in the same call, this is your best bet. You can use field masks to only request what you need, which keeps costs down.

Bref — if you just need an address, use Geocoding. If you need everything, use Place Details.

Method 3: No-Code Tools & Chrome Extensions

Not everyone wants to write code. And honestly? For small batches, you shouldn't have to.

Tools like Stevesie Data offer a no-code place id to address converter where you paste your IDs and get results in a spreadsheet. Some Chrome extensions work as a google place id finder — they let you do a quick google maps place id lookup right from your browser. Click on a map listing, grab the ID, look up its data.

These are fine for 10-50 lookups. Past that, you're going to hit walls (rate limits, manual copy-paste fatigue, or just your sanity). For anything at scale, you need one of the API methods above — or a tool built specifically for bulk extraction.

Step-by-Step: Place ID Reverse Lookup with the Geocoding API

Thierry had 5,000 Place IDs from a client migration. No addresses, no business names, nothing. Just a giant column of ChIJ... strings and a deadline. Sound familiar?

Here's exactly how to get from Place ID to full address using the Geocoding API. No hand-waving.

API Request Structure & Parameters

The endpoint for reverse geocoding place id is straightforward. You hit https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json with two parameters:

• place_id — your Place ID string
• key — your Google Maps API key

That's it. The response includes formattedaddress, geometry.location (lat/lng), and addresscomponents broken down into street, city, state, country, zip. You can also pass resulttype and locationtype filters if you want to narrow things down, but for a standard place id to address conversion, the defaults work fine.

Python Code Example

Here's what this looks like with the google maps api place id to address python approach:

import requests

def placeidtoaddress(placeid, api_key):
    url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json"
    params = {"placeid": placeid, "key": api_key}
    response = requests.get(url, params=params)
    data = response.json()

    if data["status"] == "OK":
        result = data["results"][0]
        return {
            "address": result["formatted_address"],
            "lat": result["geometry"]["location"]["lat"],
            "lng": result["geometry"]["location"]["lng"]
        }
    return {"error": data["status"]}

Example usage
result = placeidtoaddress("ChIJgUbEo8cfqokR5lP9WhDaM", "YOURAPI_KEY")
print(result)

12 lines. That's it. You can how to get address from google place id with barely any code at all. And yeah, you can also convert google place id to lat long and address in the same call — the geometry object has everything.

Handling Errors: INVALIDREQUEST & NOTFOUND

Two errors will haunt you here. INVALIDREQUEST means your Place ID format is wrong (typo, truncated, or just garbage data). NOTFOUND means the ID was valid at some point but Google can't resolve it anymore.

That second one is the sneaky one. Place IDs aren't permanent. Businesses close, locations merge, Google reshuffles its data. If you're working with old IDs — say, from a 2023 export — expect 5-10% of them to come back empty.

Pro tip: always log your errors. Don't just skip them in a loop and wonder later why your output has gaps. Trust me on this.

Bulk Place ID to Address Conversion

Calling the API 10,000 times costs $50+ and takes hours. If you're doing a one-off migration, maybe that's fine. But if this is a regular workflow? Yikes.

Let's talk about bulk place id to address conversion — because doing it one-by-one is pain nobody should endure.

DIY Batch Scripts

The brute-force approach: loop through your IDs, call the API, respect rate limits (50 QPS for Geocoding), and dump results into a CSV. You can parallelize with async Python or split the job across multiple keys.

It works. But it's slow, it's fragile (one network hiccup and your script dies at row 3,847), and the costs add up fast. $5 per 1,000 Place Details calls. Do the math on 50,000 IDs. Exactly.

Oh, and if you're thinking about a place id to address without api key solution — forget it. Google locked that down years ago. Every method needs authentication now.

Using Scrap.io for Bulk Extraction

Here's the thing most people don't realize: if you're looking up Place IDs, you probably extracted them from Google Maps in the first place. Which means you could have grabbed the full data (address, phone, email, reviews) at extraction time.

Scrap.io exports everything in one shot. No post-processing reverse lookups, no extra API costs. You search, you filter, you export — and the addresses are already there. For teams doing regular bulk place id to address conversion, this approach saves both time and money compared to round-tripping through the Geocoding API.

Place ID vs CID vs Google ID

This trips everyone up. Google has three different identifiers for locations, and they are not interchangeable. Let me save you the confusion.

The place id vs cid vs google id difference matters because you can't use a CID in the Geocoding API, and you can't use a Place ID to directly access Google Business Profile review pages. They serve different purposes.

Tools like Outscraper let you convert between these formats via their API and Python SDK. And if you want the deep dive on all three identifiers, check out our complete guide to Place ID, Google ID, and CID.

But here's the bottom line: for a google place id reverse lookup, you specifically need the Place ID format. CID won't work. Feature ID won't work. Make sure you've got the right one before you start.

Do Google Place IDs Expire?

Short answer: yes. Kind of.

Google says Place IDs "may stop working" when a business closes, changes address, or gets merged with another listing. In practice, 5-10% of Place IDs become stale annually. That's not a lot, until you're working with a dataset of 100,000 IDs and suddenly 7,000 of them return nothing.

The fix? Google recommends calling the reverse geocoding endpoint to "refresh" expired IDs. Sometimes you'll get the same ID back. Sometimes you'll get an updated one. Sometimes you'll get nothing because the place genuinely doesn't exist anymore.

If you're wondering about place id expired how to refresh — that's literally the process. Hit the API again with the old ID, check the response, update your records. There's no magic "refresh" button. It's just another API call.

One thing the GitHub community has flagged: "Reverse Geocoding by Place ID is currently not possible" in certain edge cases. That issue is technically about a specific library limitation, but it highlights the fragility. Another common complaint on Google Maps forums: "Different placeID gives the same address information" — which happens when Google merges duplicate listings behind the scenes. Don't assume every Place ID will resolve forever, and don't assume two different IDs won't point to the same place.

Real-World Use Cases

OK but who actually does this? More people than you'd think.

ReviewSense.ai built their entire SaaS around Google Business Profile data. They use Place ID lookups to match reviews to specific locations, and reportedly cut support calls by 90% after automating their address resolution pipeline. Wild.

Datatoleads does reverse address lookups in real estate — matching property data to Google Maps listings using Place IDs. PropTech companies like BatchData.io do something similar for reverse geocoding by place id google maps, feeding property records through Google's API to enrich their datasets.

And then there are the scraping-adjacent use cases. SEO agencies pulling competitor data. Local marketing firms building prospect lists. Sales teams enriching CRM records. In the Google Business Profile community, one of the most common questions is still "How do I find my google Place ID?" — which tells you how many business owners are trying to work with this data.

The common thread? Everyone has Place IDs. Not everyone has the addresses behind them. And with 5 million+ apps integrating Google Maps Platform, that gap isn't getting smaller.

Google Maps API Pricing 2026

Let's talk money. Because this is where a lot of projects die.

Google restructured their Maps Platform pricing, and in 2026 here's what you're looking at for a google place id to street address api workflow:

The $200 monthly credit covers about 40,000 Geocoding calls. That sounds generous until you factor in that the digital mapping market hit $34 billion in 2026, and Google knows exactly what it's worth. Past your free tier, costs scale linearly. No volume discounts unless you're enterprise-level.

For pricing details beyond what I've covered, check the official Google Maps Platform pricing page. And for a deeper comparison of geocoding costs across providers, we have a full geocoding API guide that breaks it all down.

Honest take? If you're doing fewer than 40K lookups a month, the free tier works. Past that, consider whether you really need the API or if a tool like Scrap.io (which bundles extraction + data in one price) makes more financial sense.

FAQ

How do I convert a Place ID to an address?

Use Google's Geocoding API with the placeid parameter, or the Place Details (New) API. Both accept a Place ID and return the formatted address, coordinates, and location components. You need a valid Google Maps API key for either method.

Is there a free tool to reverse lookup a Place ID?

Google's $200 monthly credit gives you about 40,000 free Geocoding lookups. For smaller batches, no-code tools like Stevesie Data offer place id reverse lookup free tool options with limited usage. Chrome extensions can also do one-off lookups for free.

Do Google Place IDs expire?

They can. Google estimates 5-10% of Place IDs go stale each year due to business closures, merges, or data restructuring. You can attempt to refresh them by re-querying the Geocoding API, but some will simply stop resolving.

What's the difference between Place ID, CID, and Google ID?

Place ID is the main identifier used in Google's APIs (starts with "ChIJ"). CID (Ludocid) is a numeric identifier tied to Google Business Profile listings. Google ID (Feature ID) is a hex-based internal identifier. Only Place ID works for reverse geocoding lookups. See our full comparison guide for details.

How much does a Place ID reverse lookup cost?

$5 per 1,000 calls via the Geocoding API, or $5-$7 per 1,000 via Place Details (New) depending on which fields you request. Google gives you a $200 monthly credit. For high-volume needs, tools like Scrap.io include address data in bulk exports without per-lookup pricing.