NYS Geocoder
NYS Geospatial Services is pleased to announce that we have published new geocoding service!
The NYS Geocoding Service has several key improvements over the outgoing service:
- Ease and speed of use - one composite locator vs three that the previous locator utilized.
- Records that do not geocode are no longer exported and run through a second or third locator to find a potential match.
- This new composite is made up of fewer total locators when compared to the previous geocoding service.
- The NYS Geocoding Service is faster than the existing service, meaning shorter geocoding times.
- Geocoding to sub-addresses and Points of Interest.
- ‘Suggest’ functionality has been enabled to provide potential addresses as the user types.
For more information on each locator see the Documents located here.
Geocoding is the process of turning a text-based address into a physical location on a map with X,Y coordinates. The geocoding service compares the input address (or addresses) to underlying source data and finds the best match based on many scoring factors. NYS has tuned the geocoding service to provide the most accurate result possible, given the source data available at the time of locator creation. Providing the geocoder with high quality input addresses will increase the likelihood of receiving high quality geocoding results.
The State of New York, acting through the New York State Office of Information Technology Services, makes no representations or warranties, express or implied, with respect to the use of or reliance on the Data provided. The User accepts the Data provided “as is” with no guarantees that it is error free, complete, accurate, current, or fit for any particular purpose and assumes all risks associated with its use. The State disclaims any responsibility or legal liability to Users for damages of any kind, relating to the providing of the Data or the use of it. Users should be aware that temporal changes may have occurred since this Data was created.
Current Schedule
May 2026
- Published NYS Geocoder in Production environment.
June 2026
- Final update of legacy geocoding services (Street_and_Address_Composite, Street_NoNum_ZipCode_Composite, NY_Place) was published June 26, 2026.
October 2026 (subject to change)
- Retire legacy geocoding services (Street_and_Address_Composite, Street_NoNum_ZipCode_Composite, NY_Place)
Notifications
Geospatial Services sends notifications about the geocoding service and other important topics through the GISNY Listserv. If you have not already joined or stopped receiving emails recently, please sign up here to be notified of updates from Geospatial Services.
We also encourage geocoding users to reach out to [email protected] and request to be added to our geocoding distribution list. We use this distribution list to announce updates, outages, and other geocoding specific topics.
Geocoding to Subaddressing
While NYS has had subaddress records in our address database for many years, the current geocoding service is unable to utilize these records. The new locators can successfully geocode to the Building, Floor, and Unit level if the data is contained within our database.
Geocoding to Points of Interest
Geospatial Services has also added a Point of Interest (POI) locator to the new composite. This locator is currently created using State owned buildings and work locations. This locator will be expanded to include other points of interest (State Parks, Historic Sites, etc.) in the future, however we felt including state owned buildings were an important first step in publishing a POI locator.
Suggestion Functionality
For users who are taking advantage of the geocoding service in an application or doing single geocodes within GIS software, we have enabled the Suggest functionality in the new geocoding service. This functionality searches as the user types, providing auto completed addresses to the user, similar to commercial online mapping applications. This can reduce the number of characters the user needs to type before a match is found. This can also help provide standardized input for applications resulting in cleaner data within the database.
Support
The NYS Geocoding Service is updated twice per month, on the second and fourth Friday, during scheduled change windows (5 am – 7 am).
The NYS Geocoding Service is supported Monday – Friday, 7:00 am to 4:30 pm. If an issue is encountered during off hours, please notify Geospatial Services and we will investigate the issue as soon as possible.
Currently, the NYS Geocoding Service is only able to locate addresses within New York State.
Documents
-
NYS Geocoder Release Notes.pdf
Document with information on the latest release of the NYS Geocoder (March 2026)
Download
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ArcGIS Pro Geocoder Documentation for Developers.pdf
Document with information used to update code/applications for developers.
Download
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Adding NYS Geocoder in ArcGIS_Production
Document with information on the latest release of the NYS Geocoder and how to add it in ArcGIS Production (May 2026)
Download
Contact ITS Geospatial Services
Geospatial Services is part of the NYS Office of Information Technology Services, Digital Transformation Office.
1220 Washington Avenue
Building 5 - Ground Floor
Albany, NY 12226