Google Street View support is ending: what changed on December 31, 2024

On December 31, 2024, Google retired its Street View Trusted photographer program. The Trusted badge, the Google-supplied marketing materials, the dedicated contributor support, and the public "for hire" directory of certified photographers were all withdrawn. If you have seen headlines saying "Google Street View support is ending," that program closure is the change they are pointing at. The good news is that it is narrower than it sounds. Publishing professional 360 imagery to Google Maps still works. What ended was a branding and certification layer, not the ability to put your business interior on the map.

Because the changes have arrived in waves over two years, it is easy to mix them up. So let us separate what happened, when, and what each one actually affects.

What ended, and when

There were two distinct shutdowns, not one.

First, in 2023, Google discontinued the standalone Street View mobile app for Android and iOS and removed it from the app stores. The app's Photo Paths feature went away with it. Photo Paths let contributors stitch a set of phone photos into connected coverage of places Google's own cars had not driven. That do it yourself path to building connected, blue line Street View coverage from a phone is gone, and existing Photo Paths imagery is now reachable only inside Google Maps itself.

Second, on December 31, 2024, Google retired the Trusted photographer program. From that date the Google issued badge and branding could no longer be used, and the public for hire list of Trusted photographers was deleted. This is the change tied to the date in this article's title. It removed a marketing and certification scheme. It did not remove the underlying publishing pipeline.

What still works

This is the part the alarmed headlines tend to skip. The technical way to publish 360 imagery to Google Maps is still in place.

The Street View Publish API remains active. In Google's own words it "allows your application to publish 360 photos to Google Maps, along with image metadata that specifies the position, orientation, and connectivity of each photo." That word connectivity matters: the API still supports linking photos together so a viewer can walk from one to the next, which is exactly what a navigable tour needs. Street View Studio, Google's web app for uploading and managing this imagery, also remains the working publishing tool.

Just as important, nothing was deleted from the map. Google has confirmed that existing and future virtual tours, including standalone photo spheres and connected tours, continue to function normally on Google Maps. Tours that were already published stayed live. New ones can still be published. What changed is who carries a Google badge while doing it, not whether the imagery can exist.

The honest summary is this: Google retired a badge and a phone app, not the map. You can still get a professional 360 tour of your business onto Google Maps. The path is now the professional publishing pipeline rather than a consumer app.

What this means if you want a step inside experience

If your goal is the "See inside" or step inside view that appears on a Google Business Profile and in Google Maps, the practical effect of these changes is simple. The casual, app based shortcuts that an owner might once have used on a phone are mostly gone, while the professional route is intact and, frankly, was always the route that produced presentation grade results.

To get and keep that interior presence on Maps today, a few things need to line up. You need a verified Google Business Profile for the venue. You need 360 imagery captured to publishing standard, with accurate positioning so each photo sits in the right place. And you need that imagery published and connected through the current pipeline so visitors can move through the space rather than see a single frozen sphere. That is professional work, and the retirement of the Trusted badge does not change the standard of the imagery Google will accept. It only means the photographer is no longer wearing a Google label while delivering it.

Why a professionally captured and published tour is the reliable path

With the consumer app and Photo Paths gone, the dependable way to land a connected interior tour on Google Maps is to have it captured and published by a 360 photography provider that works with the current tools. That is precisely what our Google Street View tour service does. We shoot your space as high resolution 360 photographs, position them correctly, and publish them so your "step inside" view shows up on your Business Profile and in Maps, linked so a visitor can actually walk the space.

There is a strategic reason to treat the map placement as one output rather than the whole project. The same 360 photographs that feed Google Maps can also power a custom 360 virtual tour that lives on your own website, where you control the branding, the hotspots, the calls to action, and the analytics. Google Maps is a discovery surface that you do not own. Your own tour is the asset you keep. Capturing once and publishing to both is the sensible way to spend the budget, and it insulates you from the next time a platform changes its rules. If you are new to the format, our explainer on what a 360 virtual tour is covers the basics.

Should you worry about your existing tour?

If you already have a published Street View tour of your business, the December 2024 change did not take it down. Google confirmed that published tours, both standalone spheres and connected ones, keep working. What you have lost is the easy self serve way to refresh or extend coverage from a phone, and any Trusted badge a past photographer may have shown you. If your interior has changed, you have renovated, rebranded, or moved, the practical answer is a fresh professional capture and republish rather than a consumer app you can no longer download.

The short version

• December 31, 2024: Google retired the Street View Trusted photographer program, the badge, its marketing materials, contributor support, and the for hire directory.
• Back in 2023: Google shut down the standalone Street View app and its Photo Paths feature, ending the easy phone based way to build connected coverage.
• Still working: the Street View Publish API, Street View Studio, and every tour already on the map. Professionally published 360 tours, including connected ones, are still fully supported.
• What to do: use a professional capture and publish for your Google presence, and reuse the same 360 photos for a tour you own on your own site.