Can You Sell Custom City Map & Street Map Prints on Etsy? The Map Data License Trap (2026)

Custom map prints are one of the quietest money-makers on Etsy. "The place where we met." A couple's first apartment. A wedding-venue street map. A minimalist black-and-white poster of your hometown. Buyers love them, they print beautifully, and the coordinates are just facts — so most sellers assume the whole thing is legally free and clear.

It usually isn't. Not because of the coordinates, and not because of the city name. The risk lives in one place almost nobody thinks about: the map image itself. Every map you can export from a website or app was drawn by someone, styled by someone, and licensed under specific terms. When you take that image, dress it up, and sell it, you've built a product on top of somebody else's licensed asset — and some of those licenses flatly prohibit exactly what you're doing.

Here's the short answer, then the details that keep your shop open.

The short answer

You can absolutely sell custom map art on Etsy. Thousands of shops do it well and legally. The dividing line is where the base map came from:

• Map art built from OpenStreetMap data, with the required attribution, is fine to sell commercially.
• Map art built from a Google Maps or Apple Maps screenshot violates those services' terms and can draw a copyright complaint.
• Map art reproducing a transit map (NYC subway, London Underground, etc.) is a licensed, trademarked asset — a real takedown source.

The coordinates, the city name, and your own typography and layout are yours. The cartography underneath them may not be. That single distinction is what separates a safe listing from one that gets pulled.

Why "it's just geography" is the wrong instinct

Geographic facts — the position of a river, the layout of streets, latitude and longitude — are not copyrightable. Facts never are. If that were the whole story, every map would be public domain.

But a map is not just facts. It's an act of authorship: which streets to show, how thick to draw them, what color the water is, which labels to include, the fonts, the simplification, the styling. That creative expression is protected, and it's owned by whoever made the map. Two maps of the same city can look completely different, and each version's look-and-feel belongs to its maker.

So the question is never "is this city protected?" It's "who drew the specific map image I'm about to sell, and what did they license it under?" Answer that and you know your risk.

Google Maps and Apple Maps: off-limits for products

This is the most common mistake, and the most avoidable. A huge share of "custom map" sellers screenshot Google Maps, recolor it, and list it. That breaks the rules on two levels.

Google's own Maps terms are explicit: you may print Google Maps content for personal or non-commercial use, but you cannot incorporate it as a core part of printed matter that is redistributed for a fee, and you cannot use the maps for revenue-generating purposes without a Google Maps Platform license. A map poster you sell is the textbook example of "printed matter redistributed for a fee." Google Earth imagery carries the same restriction. On top of the terms violation, Google's cartographic styling — the specific way its maps look — is copyrightable expression Google owns.

Apple Maps sits in the same bucket: its data comes from licensed providers and its terms don't grant you resale rights to exported imagery.

The tell is in your own description. If your listing text says "made from Google Maps" or shows the Google logo or that unmistakable Google color palette in the preview, you've advertised the violation. Etsy reviewers and rights-holders read tags and descriptions, not just titles — a "Google Maps art print" tag is a flag you put up yourself.

If your current workflow starts with a Google Maps screenshot, that's the thing to change first — no amount of recoloring fixes a license you never had.

OpenStreetMap: the safe path (with one non-optional step)

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is the answer most professional map-poster shops quietly rely on. The data is released under the Open Database License (ODbL), which explicitly permits commercial use — you can build products, charge whatever you want, and keep the profit.

There's one condition you cannot skip: attribution. For a printed or non-interactive product, ODbL requires more than a small credit line. You must both credit OpenStreetMap contributors and state that the data is available under the ODbL. An accepted wording is:

"Contains information from OpenStreetMap, which is made available at openstreetmap.org under the Open Database License (ODbL)."

Two things sellers get wrong here. First, a bare link or a QR code is not sufficient for print — the actual license text has to be visible on or with the product. Second, people panic about ODbL's "share-alike" clause and think it forces them to give their artwork away for free. It doesn't. Share-alike applies to derivative databases, not to the "Produced Work" — your finished poster. Your art stays yours and stays for-sale; you just have to carry the attribution. Put that credit line discreetly in a corner of the print or in the listing, and you're compliant.

If you'd rather not rely on raw OSM tiles, you can also vectorize or redraw your own map from OSM data — the moment the visual styling is entirely your own creation, you own that expression outright and only the underlying-data attribution remains.

Third-party map styles: read the tier you're on

A lot of the beautiful, minimalist map generators sellers use — Mapbox, Stadia Maps, Snazzy Maps styles, and various "make a map poster" tools — sit on top of OSM data but add their own cartographic style on top, and that style is licensed separately from the data.

The practical rule: commercial static-image exports from these providers generally require a paid/commercial tier, and the terms often require you to keep the provider's attribution and not strip their logo. A free-tier map exported for personal use and then sold is the same category of mistake as the Google screenshot — you used an asset outside the license you had. Before you build a product line on any map tool, open its terms and confirm three things: commercial print use is allowed on your plan, whether attribution is required, and whether you're permitted to sell the output rather than just view it.

Transit maps are a separate, higher-risk category

Subway and transit maps feel like public infrastructure, so they're a magnet for "I'll just make my own version" thinking. They are among the most aggressively protected map assets in existence.

The New York MTA runs a formal licensing program covering its trademarks (the MTA symbol, MetroCard, the numbered/lettered route symbols) and the copyright in its subway map. Commercial use goes through MTALicensing@nyct.com and carries a fee. In London, Transport for London licenses the Tube map and the roundel through a partner, with set royalty rates, advance payment, and a standard term that prohibits any modification of the map. TfL is blunt about why: they treat the map and roundel as brand assets they must protect from dilution.

There's a nuance worth knowing. The MTA has occasionally overreached — it once tried to stop someone selling prints of photos that merely contained route symbols and backed down after public pushback. That's a reminder that not every claim is airtight, but it is not a green light: the underlying trademarks and map copyrights are real and enforced, and Etsy will act on a complaint long before any of that nuance gets argued. "Subway map art" of a real system, without a license, is a takedown waiting to happen.

Landmarks and skylines: actually good news

If your map or location print includes recognizable buildings — a skyline silhouette, a landmark, an architectural outline — you're on firmer ground than you'd expect. Under U.S. copyright law, pictorial representations of an architectural work that is visible from a public place are expressly permitted (17 U.S.C. § 120(a)). You can draw, paint, and sell an image of a building you can see from the street.

The caveats are the usual ones: a specific building's name or a company headquarters can carry trademark issues if you imply an endorsement, and a handful of famous structures have aggressive licensing programs around their likeness. But the base rule — depicting buildings visible from public spaces — works in your favor for skyline and landmark art.

Coordinates, city names, and your own design

The genuinely safe ingredients, to be clear about what you do own:

• Coordinates are facts. "40.7128° N, 74.0060° N" is not copyrightable, and neither is the name of a city, street, or venue.
• Your typography, layout, color choices, and composition are your original expression and belong to you.
• A "where we met" or wedding-map print is, legally, your design plus whatever base map sits under it. Get the base map right and the whole product is clean.

Place names themselves are rarely trademarkable, but there are edge cases — protected geographic indications (think Champagne, or a handful of registered place-linked marks) — where a name is more loaded than it looks. That's a smaller risk than the base-map issue, but worth a glance if your niche leans into premium regional branding.

A quick pre-listing check

Before you publish a map or location print, run it against these questions:

• Where did the base map come from? OSM with attribution is safe; a Google/Apple screenshot is not.
• Did you add the ODbL attribution line if you used OpenStreetMap? Actual license text, not just a link.
• Is it a transit map? If so, assume you need a license and don't list it without one.
• Do your title, tags, and description name a map service or transit system? "Google Maps," "NYC subway map," or a transit logo in your text is a self-inflicted flag. Reviewers scan the full listing, not just the title.
• Is the styling your own, or lifted from a paid map tool you're using on a free tier?

Custom map art is a legitimate, durable niche — the sellers who get pulled almost always got pulled for the map underneath, not the idea. Start from open data, carry your attribution, keep the styling yours, and steer clear of transit systems, and you've removed the vast majority of the risk before you ever hit publish.

For related reading, see our guides on selling custom star map and constellation products, protected place names and geographic indications, and selling printable wall art without font or image traps. If your designs lean on brand names or logos, our Google trademark guide and Apple trademark guide walk through where the lines fall.