OpenStreetMap in Print: Commercial Use and Credit Lines

Can You Use an OpenStreetMap Map in a Printed Poster, Book or Commercial Design?

OpenStreetMap's license grants rights that, in its own words, "explicitly include commercial use," so a sold poster, a guidebook, a T-shirt or a client's printed brochure can all be built on OSM maps. The price is a credit: name OpenStreetMap, make clear the data is under the Open Database License, and on paper print the address openstreetmap.org/copyright in full.

A tote bag with a city street plan needs that credit in three places under the OpenStreetMap Foundation's attribution guideline: on the packaging, at the point of sale, and on the bag itself where possible. A 120-page walking guide needs it once, in the spot where the book puts its other picture credits. A wedding invitation showing only the venue and the street outside it may need none at all, because the guideline exempts static images of areas under 10,000 square meters. Those three answers come from the same set of documents, and most of the confusion around OSM in print comes from mixing them up or from reading forum threads instead of the texts.

The data and the drawing are licensed separately

Every OSM map you might drop into a layout has two layers of rights, and they are easy to blur.

The data. Roads, rivers, building outlines, place names and the tags on them sit in the OpenStreetMap database. The OpenStreetMap copyright page states that this data is "licensed under the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF)." The ODbL is a database license. It defines itself as both a license of rights such as copyright and database rights and an agreement in contract, and section 2.4 says it does not reach copyright in individual items inside the database.

The rendering. The colored map you see on openstreetmap.org is a drawing made from that data by a style. The default style, OpenStreetMap Carto, is a separate open-source project. Its license file says the software is released under the CC0 public domain dedication and adds, "For avoidance of doubt, this includes the cartographic design."

That second point has changed over the years, and old advice still circulates. A copy of the OSM copyright page saved by the Internet Archive on January 1, 2020 said "The cartography in our map tiles, and our documentation, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license (CC BY-SA)," and asked users of the tiles to say so. The current page names only the documentation as CC BY-SA 2.0. If you are reading a forum answer that tells you to credit "CC BY-SA" for the standard map look, check its date against that change.

Whatever the look, the data credit stays, and a third party's style can add terms of its own:

• A map rendered in the standard OSM look, or in your own style, is still made from ODbL data, so the ODbL credit applies either way.
• A map from a third-party tile service or style built on OSM data carries that provider's own terms on top of the ODbL. The OSMF tile policy says plainly that it does not cover other layers shown on openstreetmap.org, such as OpenCycleMap, and that "those layers may have their own usage policies." Read the provider's terms before you print their cartography.

If you need a refresher on how CC0 and the attribution-based Creative Commons licenses differ, our Creative Commons explainer for designers walks through each one. The ODbL is a different instrument with its own vocabulary, and that vocabulary decides what a printed map owes.

Produced Work: the ODbL term that decides your obligations

The ODbL sorts what you make into two buckets, and almost every design job lands in the friendlier one.

A Produced Work is "a work (such as an image, audiovisual material, text, or sounds) resulting from using the whole or a Substantial part of the Contents." The OSMF's Produced Work guideline, endorsed by its board on June 6, 2014, lists what usually counts: PNG, JPG, PDF and SVG images, any raster image, and "a map in a physically printed work."

A Derivative Database is a database based on the OSM database, including any modification of a substantial part of it. A planet file, a cleaned-up shapefile you hand to a client, or a layered GIS export meant for someone else to query are databases, not pictures. The guideline's test is intent: if the published result "is intended for the extraction of the original data, then it is a database and not a Produced Work."

The buckets carry different duties under the license text:

Section 4.5(b) is the sentence that protects your design: using the database "to create a Produced Work does not create a Derivative Database for purposes of Section 4.4." In plain terms, the share-alike rule does not reach your poster. You can sell the print under ordinary all-rights-reserved terms. Your typography, illustration, color work and layout remain yours. What you cannot do is stop anyone else from making their own map from the same OSM data.

Section 3.1 makes the grant "worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive," and says the rights "do not exclude any field of endeavour." There is no non-commercial version of the ODbL, unlike the NC variants in Creative Commons, so the question for print is never whether you may sell. It is how you credit and, occasionally, whether you have to share data.

All of this is general information drawn from the published texts, not legal advice for a particular project, and the ODbL is a contract whose reading can vary by country. The site disclaimer applies.

When "public" starts

Duties under the ODbL switch on when you use the work "Publicly." The license defines that as use toward "Persons other than You or under Your control by either more than 50% ownership or by the power to direct their activities (such as contracting with an independent consultant)." The attribution guideline repeats the point from the other side: attribution "is only necessary when a Produced Work is used Publicly," and the guideline "does not concern internal uses."

So a company that hires a design studio and sends it OSM extracts is, on that definition, sharing within its own control. The studio's mood boards and internal proofs are internal. The moment the poster ships to a customer, hangs in a shop, or the guidebook goes on sale, the use is public and the credit has to be there.

The direction of the relationship matters. The parenthetical in the definition describes a client directing its contractor. It does not obviously make a studio's delivery to a client "internal," because the client is not under the studio's control. The simple habit that avoids the question: put the credit in the working file from the first draft, so it cannot fall off between proof and press.

The credit line, word by word

The OSMF Attribution Guidelines, adopted by the OSMF board on June 25, 2021, set out what they call a "safe harbour": a way of crediting that the foundation believes satisfies the ODbL. The guideline says it is "not a substitute for the legal text itself" and that the legal text wins if the two disagree. It also says you may give "even better and more prominent attribution."

Two things must be present. First, the credit must be to "OpenStreetMap." Second, it must make clear that the data is available under the Open Database License. On screen, a link from the word OpenStreetMap to openstreetmap.org/copyright does the second job. On paper there is no link, so the copyright page asks for "the full URL on the page," and the guideline for printed media says "The URL to openstreetmap.org/copyright must be printed out."

The guideline accepts these forms of the credit text:

• "© OpenStreetMap contributors" (a historical form it still accepts)
• "© OpenStreetMap" (also accepted)
• "Map data from OpenStreetMap" (suggested where you rendered OSM data in your own design)

The ODbL itself, in section 4.3(a), gives a longer sample notice that satisfies the license: "Contains information from DATABASE NAME, which is made available here under the Open Database License (ODbL)," with plain-text addresses when hyperlinks are not possible.

Put together for print, workable credit lines look like this:

The guideline encourages that last kind of qualification. OSM "does not wish to claim credit for data or other material that did not come from it," and in its closing section it prefers to be credited only for the areas or features that actually contain OSM data. It also forbids the reverse: other credits or logos on the page "must not create any false or misleading impression that OSM data is not from OSM." A cartographer's signature is fine; a line saying "Map © Studio Name" with no OSM credit is not.

Why the URL rather than just the name? The copyright page lists data OSM has imported from national mapping agencies and others, from Ordnance Survey in the United Kingdom to the LINZ Data Service in New Zealand, and the attribution guideline notes that openstreetmap.org/copyright carries information about "OpenStreetMap's data sources (which OpenStreetMap needs to credit)." Printing the address passes those credits through to your reader without a page of fine print.

Where the credit goes, medium by medium

The guideline gives separate rules for several media. The table below collects the ones that matter for print and design work, quoting the guideline's placement rules and adding our own notes on how each lands in a layout.

Two rules in the guideline apply to every row. The credit must be "legible and understandable," judged by "font, size, colour, contrast, positioning," and it must be placed "in the vicinity of the produced work or in a location where customarily attribution would be expected." The guideline recommends following accessibility guidelines such as WCAG. Those were written for screens, but the same idea carries over to ink: a 4-point credit in pale gray on a busy map is not a credit.

Posters, prints and merchandise sold online

Decorative city-map prints are the most common commercial OSM product, and the guideline has a section aimed at them: "Artwork, household goods, and clothing." It covers "physical merchandise with an aesthetic component using OpenStreetMap data" and asks for attribution on packaging, at the point of sale, and on the item where possible. Our reading is that a framed or rolled map print sold as decor falls under that section rather than the "printed maps" section, because it is sold as an aesthetic object. The safer course is to meet both: the merchandise rules are stricter, and following them also satisfies the printed-map rule.

For a print-on-demand store, that translates into four concrete places:

1. The product listing. A line in the description, such as "Map data from OpenStreetMap, openstreetmap.org/copyright," covers the point of sale. Put it in the main description, not only in an FAQ tab the buyer may never open.
2. The artwork file. Set the credit in the bottom margin or along one edge of the print, where a gallery label would sit. Most minimalist map posters already have a margin for the city name and coordinates; the credit belongs beside them.
3. The packaging or insert. If you ship in a branded tube or include a card, add the line there too.
4. Variants and mockups. Every size and color variant in the store gets the same credit, including the promotional mockups. A mockup image is itself a static image of the map.

For mugs, phone cases and clothing, "to the extent possible" carries real weight. A full-wrap mug has room along the handle side. A T-shirt with a chest print may not have space that reads as part of the design, and in that case the guideline points to a label or tag, for example the printed neck label most print-on-demand services offer. If you are pairing the map with lettering, the type license matters on the same product, and our guide to free fonts for T-shirts and merch covers that half.

What you may not do is drop the credit because it spoils the look. The guideline is explicit that attribution "should not require individuals to interact with the map or produced work to see the attribution," so hiding it on the back of a framed print's backing board, where only the framer will see it, falls short of the safe harbour.

Guidebooks, magazines and atlases

Books get the most flexible rule. The credit goes where the publication already credits images: beside each map if captions carry credits, in a footnote or endnote if that is the house style, or in the acknowledgements, "often at the start of a book or magazine," if that is where other credits live. Whichever spot you use, the URL must be printed.

The texts raise three book-specific points.

One credit can cover many maps. The static-image rule says that when "multiple static images appear on the same document, one instance of attribution is sufficient." A walking guide with 30 route maps can carry one acknowledgement entry, provided that is where the book's other picture credits are and the reader can find it.

Cover maps are not the same as cover logos. Using an OSM-derived map as cover art is a Produced Work like any other and needs the credit in the book's credits section. Putting the OpenStreetMap name or magnifying-glass logo on the cover is a trademark question, covered further down, and the trademark policy says to ask the foundation first.

Reprints and new editions carry the duty forward. Each edition is a new public use. If you redraw maps for a second edition using a fresh OSM extract, the same credit applies; if you corrected streets yourself, see the section on edited data below.

For magazines, the same "where other such credits appear" rule means the credit can sit in the photo-credit line for the spread or in the issue's credits box. A recurring map feature in every issue does not need a separate permission each time, since the ODbL grant is standing.

When no credit is needed at all

The guideline names three situations where a static image needs no attribution:

• Images showing "fewer than 100 features."
• Images of "areas less than 10,000 m2."
• "Small thumbnails/icons."

The feature-count test is borrowed from the OSMF's separate Substantial guideline, which sets out what the foundation regards as an insubstantial extract; the area test is the attribution guideline's own. A "feature" in that guideline is "a street, restaurant, park, cemetery, bus stop, mountain top etc.," and a restaurant with opening hours attached is still one feature.

Scale gives the area test its real meaning. 10,000 square meters is one hectare, a square 100 meters on each side, about 2.5 acres. That is smaller than many single city blocks and far smaller than any neighborhood map. A locator map of one building and its two neighboring streets can fit under it. A map of a wedding venue with the route from the station almost never will.

The Substantial guideline's own thresholds are about extracting data, and they differ from the image rules:

The Substantial guideline's own worked example is a seaside village with 31 features, which it calls insubstantial. Its summary line is blunter: "village map OK, town map not OK." It also warns that "repeated small extractions" count as one big one. The attribution guideline does not spell that out for images, but the same logic would treat a series of 40 small locator maps for a franchise's 40 shops as one large use rather than 40 exempt images.

The honest takeaway is that the exemptions are narrow. If a design shows streets, a park and a few points of interest across more than a couple of blocks, count on needing the credit. Adding it costs one line, and the guideline itself encourages credit beyond the minimum.

Screenshots, tile downloads and the tile usage policy

Whether you may use an OSM image and whether you may fetch it from OSM's servers are separate questions, and the second one catches more print designers than the first.

The OSMF Tile Usage Policy opens with the distinction: OSM data "is free for everyone to use. Our tile servers are not." The policy governs tile.openstreetmap.org, the free raster tiles behind the main website, and it prohibits bulk downloading, which it defines as "any pre-emptive fetching of tiles other than those a user is actively viewing." Its examples include "pre-seeding" large areas or multiple zoom levels, building tile archives, "automated scans across wide bounding boxes, especially at high zoom (z≥14)," and "headless bots that pan/zoom the map to force rendering."

A print-resolution poster is exactly where designers reach for those methods. A city map at 300 dpi on an A2 sheet needs far more pixels than one screen shows, and the shortcut is a script or browser extension that stitches hundreds of high-zoom tiles together. Under the policy, that is the prohibited pattern, whatever the license says about the image you end up with. The policy warns that such traffic "will be blocked without notice," and that commercial services in particular "should be especially aware that access may be withdrawn at any point."

The policy does not address an ordinary screenshot of the map you are viewing; its rules target server load from automated and prefetching clients. A screenshot is still a Produced Work, so the credit applies to it, but it will rarely have the resolution or the clean vector edges a print job needs.

The routes the policy points to for heavier use:

• Render it yourself. Download OSM data and render it with your own style or the CC0 OpenStreetMap Carto style. This is the standard route for print, because you control resolution, colors and output format, and you can export vector PDF or SVG for the printer. Our vector file formats guide covers which of those formats survives a hand-off to a print shop.
• Use a hosted provider. The policy lists community and commercial OSM-derived services. Each has its own terms on print, resolution and attribution, which sit on top of the ODbL credit.
• Vector tiles. The policy notes that vector tiles "can be hosted by third parties or self-hosted, and where the provider terms permit can be packaged for offline use."

Whichever route you take, the ODbL credit to OpenStreetMap stays. A commercial provider may require its own credit next to it, and the attribution guideline allows OSM's text to "appear at the same time as, or next to, other attributions."

Restyling, tracing and editing the data before you draw

Design work rarely uses a map untouched, and the license treats different kinds of change differently.

Restyling and simplifying are fine. Recoloring roads, dropping labels, thickening the river, simplifying building outlines and setting your own type all happen in the drawing, not in the database. The OSMF's Trivial Transformations guideline goes further on the data side. Its list of changes that add nothing to be shared includes taking "a partial extract ... based on a filter," changing coordinate systems, converting file formats, and "algorithm-driven generalizations: simplifications of roads and polygons" along with automated label placement. That guideline page marks itself as being "at the proposal stage," so treat it as the foundation's stated view rather than settled text.

Hand-tracing still uses the data. An illustrated map drawn by hand over an OSM screenshot is a Produced Work of the OSM data. The street pattern, the park shapes and the names came from the database, so the credit applies even though no tile appears in the final art. If the traced area is small enough to fall under the thresholds above, the exemption applies to it too. Tracing questions also come up with photographs, where copyright rather than database rights is the issue, and our guide to tracing photos and copyright covers that side.

Adding or correcting data is where share-alike bites. The Trivial Transformations guideline says "adding or correcting data would not ever be considered 'trivial'." If you fix a street name, add a missing footpath from your own survey, or merge another dataset into the OSM layer before rendering, you have made a Derivative Database. Section 4.4(c) of the ODbL says a Derivative Database "is Publicly Used" when a Produced Work made from it is public, and section 4.6 then requires you to offer recipients either the whole altered database or "a file containing all of the alterations," free of charge over the internet or at no more than reasonable production cost for physical copies.

One wrinkle in the texts is worth knowing. The Produced Work guideline contains a sentence saying that "if you publish a produced work, the underlying database has to be published as well." Read alone, that sounds as if every poster triggers a data-sharing duty. The ODbL's own section 4.6 is narrower and speaks of "a Produced Work from a Derivative Database," and the attribution guideline says the legal text takes precedence. For a map made from unchanged, filtered or restyled OSM data, the license text asks for the credit, not a data release.

The easiest way to meet the 4.6 duty for corrections is often the one the Substantial guideline openly hopes for: put your corrections into OpenStreetMap itself. Once your survey fixes are in the public database, the differences between your data and OSM's shrink or disappear.

Separate layers of your own data stay yours, within limits. The OSMF's Horizontal Map Layers guideline, also endorsed on June 6, 2014, says that if all data for a feature type comes from non-OSM sources, share-alike does not apply to that feature type. Its examples: plotting your own bird-migration paths over an OSM base map, or excluding all OSM restaurants and adding your own restaurant layer. The trap is complementing OSM: adding only the restaurants OSM is missing, or a layer of "all cemeteries not found in the OpenStreetMap data," makes the layers interact, and those additions must be shared.

The OpenStreetMap name and logo are a separate permission

Crediting OSM and decorating a product with its brand are different acts. The copyright page says that "OpenStreetMap, the magnifying glass logo, and State of the Map are registered trademarks of the OpenStreetMap Foundation." The OSMF Trademark Policy then sorts uses.

Allowed without asking:

• Using the word mark "as necessary to comply with the attribution requirements" (section 3.3.5). Your credit line is covered.
• Factual references, such as "This company's maps are based on OpenStreetMap," as long as that is accurate (section 3.3).

Needs a trademark licence from the foundation:

• Commercial merchandise "with the OSM marks" (section 4.4). Licences of this kind require, at least, using the logos unmodified and telling customers truthfully how much of the price, if any, goes to OSM projects.
• A publication that uses a mark beyond fair or referential use, "such as a book cover that might imply endorsement of your book by the OSMF" (section 4.3).
• Modifying or remixing the logos (section 2.1).

So "Map data from OpenStreetMap, openstreetmap.org/copyright" in the corner of a print is fine. The magnifying glass on the product, a listing title like "Official OpenStreetMap Poster," or a remixed OSM logo on a tote bag needs a licence or needs to go. If the distinction between copyright and trademark is new territory, our explainer on what copyright and trademark each protect in a logo covers the general rules.

Clearing a city poster from data file to shop listing

Here is how the texts apply to a hypothetical job, with every input stated. A small studio sells a minimalist street map of a mid-sized city as an A2 art print and a 50 x 70 cm framed version through its online shop, plus a matching postcard set.

Source. The studio downloads an OSM extract for the city and renders it locally in its own two-color style. It does not touch tile.openstreetmap.org. The tile policy does not apply, and the CC0 Carto style is not used, so the only upstream terms are the ODbL.

Edits. The designer filters the extract to roads, water and parks, simplifies the coastline, and removes all labels. Under the Trivial Transformations guideline those are filters and generalizations, not additions, so no Derivative Database is created. One change is different: the designer adds a new pedestrian bridge from a site visit. That is added data. The studio has two clean choices: map the bridge into OpenStreetMap so the public database matches, or publish a small change file with the bridge geometry and say where to find it.

Size. A city map covers far more than 10,000 square meters and thousands of features. No exemption applies.

Credits.

Brand. No OSM logo anywhere, and the listing title says "City Street Map Print," not "OpenStreetMap Print."

What the studio keeps. Its style, the composition and the typography are its own work. Under ODbL 4.5(b), the print is not a Derivative Database, so the studio can sell it under its own terms. It cannot stop another seller from making a different map of the same city from the same data.

The point sizes above are our suggestions, not figures from any OSM text. The guideline asks only that the credit be legible, judged by "font, size, colour, contrast, positioning."

Setting a credit line that survives the press

A credit that is legally present but disappears in printing does not do its job, and print has failure modes that screens do not.

• Keep it inside the safe area. A credit set flush to the trim edge can be cut off or end up a hair from the edge after trimming tolerance. Place it inside the same safe margin as other text; our guide to bleed, trim and safe areas gives the usual distances.
• Set small type in one ink. Fine text built from four process colors can blur if the plates misregister. Setting the credit in plain 100% black, not a four-color rich black, keeps the edges sharp. The rich black versus 100K black guide explains why small text should stay single-ink.
• Watch the contrast over the map. If the credit has to sit on top of the map instead of in a margin, give it a solid panel. Pale gray text over a street grid fails the guideline's legibility test long before it fails any contrast meter.
• Spell the address out. On paper, "openstreetmap.org/copyright" is the link. Don't shorten it with a URL shortener or a QR code alone; the guideline wants the URL itself printed. A QR code next to the text is fine as an addition.
• Check the export. Credits set as live text can drop out if a font fails to embed or a layer is hidden at export. Look for it in the final PDF the printer receives, not only in the layout file. The PDF/X-1a versus PDF/X-4 guide covers the export settings that keep text intact.

Map credits sit on the same checklist as every other borrowed asset in a job. When the OSM line is set, the next item to clear is usually the typeface or the photography on the same piece, and our asset licensing checklist runs through each of those before the files leave the studio.

OpenStreetMap print and licensing questions

Do I have to pay OpenStreetMap to use its map in a product I sell?

No. ODbL section 3.1 grants a "royalty-free" license whose rights "explicitly include commercial use." There is no fee. The condition is the credit, and the data-sharing duty only if you altered or added to the data.

Is "© OpenStreetMap contributors" still acceptable?

Yes. The 2021 attribution guideline calls it a "historical" form and says it remains acceptable, alongside "© OpenStreetMap." In print, add the printed address openstreetmap.org/copyright so the ODbL is made clear.

Can I copyright a poster I designed from OpenStreetMap data?

Your original contribution, such as the style, composition and typography, is your work, and ODbL section 4.5(b) means a Produced Work does not fall under share-alike. The underlying street data stays open, so others may make their own maps of the same place.

Can I sell a map I traced by hand from OpenStreetMap?

Yes, with the credit. Tracing reproduces the data, so the drawing is a Produced Work of OSM. Only a very small area, under the 100-feature or 10,000 square meter thresholds, is exempt.

Do I need to credit OSM on a map that shows a single building?

A map that small can be exempt: the attribution guideline excuses static images of areas less than 10,000 square meters and images with fewer than 100 features. A locator map showing more than a block or two will usually exceed both.

Can I put the OpenStreetMap logo on my map print?

Not on commercial merchandise without a trademark licence from the OSMF. Your credit line may name OpenStreetMap, but the magnifying glass logo on a product needs permission.

Official texts quoted above

• OpenStreetMap, Copyright and License: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright (checked October 31, 2026)
• OpenStreetMap, Copyright and License (Wayback copy, saved January 1, 2020): https://web.archive.org/web/20200101001242/https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright (checked October 31, 2026)
• Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0: https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/ (checked October 31, 2026)
• OSMF, Licence/Attribution Guidelines, adopted June 25, 2021, revision 14786, last edited September 10, 2026: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Attribution_Guidelines (checked October 31, 2026)
• OSMF, Produced Work guideline, endorsed June 6, 2014, revision 3984: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Community_Guidelines/Produced_Work_-_Guideline (checked October 31, 2026)
• OSMF, Substantial guideline, endorsed June 6, 2014, revision 5296: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Community_Guidelines/Substantial_-_Guideline (checked October 31, 2026)
• OSMF, Trivial Transformations guideline, revision 3990: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Community_Guidelines/Trivial_Transformations_-_Guideline (checked October 31, 2026)
• OSMF, Horizontal Map Layers guideline, endorsed June 6, 2014, revision 3982: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licence/Community_Guidelines/Horizontal_Map_Layers_-_Guideline (checked October 31, 2026)
• OSMF Operations, Tile Usage Policy: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/ (checked October 31, 2026)
• OSMF, Trademark Policy, last edited April 30, 2018: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_Policy (checked October 31, 2026)
• OpenStreetMap Carto, LICENSE.txt: https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/blob/master/LICENSE.txt (checked October 31, 2026)