Most UK businesses I look at have a Google Business Profile and have never opened Bing. Fair enough. But quite often there's already a Bing listing for them, and it has an old phone number on it.
Bing Places for Business is where you fix that. It's free, it takes about an hour, and this guide covers the parts that tend to go wrong: claiming, importing from Google, verification and duplicates.
I checked everything here against Microsoft's own help pages on 10 November 2026.
What is Bing Places for Business?
It's Microsoft's free tool for managing your business listing on Bing search and Bing Maps. Think of it as Bing's version of a Google Business Profile. It works in the UK, and since October 2025 it lives at bing.com/forbusiness.
That date matters a bit. Microsoft rebuilt the whole thing in October 2025 and moved it from bingplaces.com. Older accounts were moved across automatically. So if a guide sends you to bingplaces.com, the steps in it are probably out of date.
Is Bing Places worth doing in the UK?
I think so, as long as you keep your expectations low. StatCounter's figures for October 2026 put Bing at 6.76% of UK search. Google has 90.59%.
For the clients I look after, Bing sends a handful of visits a month. That's a lot less than Google. My guess is that much of it comes from work laptops, where Edge and Bing are often the default.
The better reason is the one from the top of this page. If a wrong listing is already out there, an hour is a cheap way to stop it sending people to a dead number.
Does a Bing listing get you into ChatGPT?
Nobody has shown that it does. I read about 20 of Microsoft's Bing Places help pages and none of them mention ChatGPT or Copilot. The claim that your listing "feeds" AI answers comes from companies that sell listing software.
This is what the sources themselves say:
| Claim | Who says it | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
| Your listing shows on Bing search and Bing Maps | Microsoft | Documented |
| "Deeper integrations" with Copilot | Microsoft, as a future plan | Not here yet |
| ChatGPT search uses outside search providers | OpenAI | Documented, but Bing Places isn't named |
| Your listing feeds ChatGPT and Copilot | Listing software vendors | Not confirmed |
ChatGPT also gets business details from other places. In July 2026, Axios reported that Yelp is licensing its reviews and business information to OpenAI.
So I'd claim the listing because it's on Bing. I wouldn't claim it expecting ChatGPT to notice.
How do you claim your Bing listing?
Search for your business on Bing first, then claim what's there or create a new listing. Microsoft's own steps are short:
- Search Bing and Bing Maps for your name, your phone number and your postcode. Old listings hide under old details.
- If you find one, click the three dots next to the name and choose "Manage business".
- If you don't, create a listing at bing.com/forbusiness.
- Verify it. Nothing you change goes live until you do.
Should you import your listing from Google?
Usually, yes. If your Google profile is verified, Bing verifies the imported listing automatically. When we imported a client's profile there was no PIN and no postcard, which is the main reason I'd start here.
It does come with strings. According to Microsoft's sync page, you can't choose which listings come across, and categories may not copy exactly. Once a listing is linked to Google you can't edit it in Bing either. You change it in Google and wait for the next sync.
The one that catches people out is duplicates. Microsoft says the sync "may create duplicate listings", especially if Bing already had a listing for you. That happened to us, and there's more on it further down.
So the import is quickest when your Google profile is right and Bing has nothing old on you. If Google is wrong, fix Google first, because whatever is there gets copied.
See if Google's AI names you
Enter your site. We check the questions your buyers ask and show who gets named.
How long does Bing Places verification take?
It depends which method Bing offers you, and you don't get to pick from all of them.
| Method | How long | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Google import | Automatic | Only if Google has already verified you |
| Phone, text or email | Quick, when Bing offers it | Phone only shows if the number on the listing hasn't been edited |
| Postcard | Up to 12 business days | Microsoft gives no UK figure, so plan for the long end |
If your PIN doesn't work, it's probably the account. Microsoft says the PIN has to be entered from the same account that asked for it. If an agency started the process, the PIN belongs to their login.
Why is my listing stuck on "Pending Publish"?
Often because someone keeps editing it. Every change goes through what Microsoft calls a publish cycle: 7 to 12 days in North America and "up to 2 weeks for the rest of the world". The UK isn't named, so I'm reading that as two weeks.
Each edit resets the clock. Make your changes in one go and leave it alone.
If it's still pending after a full cycle, Microsoft says to contact support. Some owners on Reddit and on Microsoft's forum say theirs sat for months, so keep your ticket number and reply in the same thread.
How do you fix a duplicate or wrong Bing listing?
Find the listing that's showing on Bing Maps and work on that one. Microsoft locks editing on anything it has marked as a duplicate, so fixing the wrong copy gets you nowhere.
A few other cases come up a lot.
You've moved. Don't edit the old listing. Microsoft says to create a new one at the new address and mark the old one closed. Closed listings drop off Bing after about six months.
Someone else set it up. Ask them for access, or for the account. If that fails, go to Bing support with proof that you run the business.
The wrong details keep coming back. Bing checks your name, address and phone against other sources. If an old directory still has your old number, Bing may believe the directory. Fix it there too.
One more quick job while you're on Bing
Set up IndexNow if your website platform supports it. It's a free way to tell Bing straight away when you add or change a page, so you're not waiting for Bing to find out. IndexNow's own site says that without it, search engines can take days or weeks to notice.
It works on your website, so it's separate from your listing, and Google doesn't use it. We use it on our own site and send a ping whenever we publish something.
If Bing is one part of a bigger tidy-up, Google and the main UK directories are worth doing at the same time. That's the kind of work in our SEO services, though you can do the Bing part yourself in an afternoon. And if reviews are the problem, here's what Google will and won't remove.