🗝️ MissingKeyMapError

2 min read • Updated 07/13/2025

Error explanation

As we discussed in 🔑 Obtaining Your Maps API Key(s) , each Google Map must be initialized with an API key.

If the key is malformed or simply absent from the initialization code, Google Maps responds with a MissingKeyMapError.

Likely causes

You have likely:

Forgotten to provide the key parameter in the <script> tag. The script tag should look something like this:

<script async defer src="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?key=Aiza...&callback=initMap"></script

Stored the API key in an environment variable but misspelled its name. For instance, if you're using React (as seen in 🎞️ Working with Frameworks ), your code might look like this:
```
import { GoogleMap, GoogleMapProps, LoadScript } from '@react-google-maps/api'
function WrappedGoogleMap({ ...props }: GoogleMapProps) { return (
<LoadScript googleMapsApiKey="{process.env.PUBLIC_GMAPS_API_KEY}" ...>
  ...
</LoadScript>
) }
```
Do make sure that process.env.PUBLIC_GMAPS_API_KEY is defined and available at runtime.

Solutions

Follow 🔑 Obtaining Your Maps API Key(s) and 🌐 Creating a New Google Map or any of the approaches in 🎞️ Working with Frameworks .

Make sure your API is restricted and available at runtime.

Bonus: programmatically creating API keys

If you're a platform managing other people's Google Maps API keys, here's some good news — you can programmatically create, list, delete, and patch API keys.

gcloud Command Line Interface (CLI)

1. Install the CLI .

Join 200+ developers who've mastered this! Get Lifetime Access — $5

Already a member? Sign in here