Local Business Schema Markup: What to Add and What to Skip

Schema markup is a block of code on your page that states your business details in a format search engines can read without guessing. For a local business, it says: this is the name, this is the address, this is the phone number, and these are the opening hours.

This article is part of our local SEO guide for small businesses. It follows Google's documentation, checked on 20 September 2026.

What Google asks for

Google's local business documentation lists:

• Required: name and address
• Recommended: telephone, url, openingHoursSpecification, priceRange (up to 100 characters), geo coordinates (with at least five decimal places), and others for specific types, such as menu and servesCuisine for food businesses

It also says to use the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible, such as Restaurant, DaySpa or HealthClub, and that you can put the markup on any page, though a page about your business makes the most sense.

A simple example

This is a fictional plumber. The details are placeholders:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Plumber",
  "name": "Example Plumbing Ltd",
  "url": "https://www.example.com/",
  "telephone": "+1 555 010 1234",
  "address": {
    "@type": "PostalAddress",
    "streetAddress": "12 High Street",
    "addressLocality": "Springfield",
    "addressRegion": "IL",
    "postalCode": "62701",
    "addressCountry": "US"
  },
  "openingHoursSpecification": [
    {
      "@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
      "dayOfWeek": ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday"],
      "opens": "09:00:00",
      "closes": "17:00:00"
    }
  ]
}

Google's documentation says opening times use hh:mm:ss format and days can be given as names such as Monday.

You wrap it in a script tag with type="application/ld+json" and place it in the page's HTML. Our free local business schema generator builds this for you from a form.

Rules to follow

1. Only mark up what is true and visible. Your address, phone number and hours on the page should match the markup and your Business Profile.
2. Don't invent an address. If you have no public premises, see Google Business Profile for service-area businesses.
3. Skip rating and review markup on your own business. Google's guidelines say that if the entity being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, pages using LocalBusiness or other Organization markup are ineligible for the star review feature. Adding it won't earn stars.
4. Keep it up to date. When your hours or phone number change, change the markup too.

Checking it

Test the live page with Google's Rich Results Test or the Schema Markup Validator, and check for warnings. If your page uses a template, check once that the output is in the page source and not only added by a script.

Where it fits

Markup is one part of local SEO. It works best beside an accurate Business Profile, a clear title and description (check them with our meta title checker) and honest reviews.