Key:end_date

=* was designed to indicate when a feature is planned to go out of use, or when it went out of service, or when it was demolished. It is also used in separate historic mapping projects (like OpenHistoricalMap) but should not be used for same purpose in the main OSM database, as the key meaning differs.

If possible, =* should be accompanied by source:end_date=* to provide more information. Also note=* or note:end_date=* might be helpful.

See start_date=* for details of formatting of dates.

Please see Comparison of life cycle concepts for alternatives.

Common uses in practice

=* in the future

• to indicate that some feature (e.g. shop=*, club=*, amenity=* etc.) has announced they will close / go out of business at specified date in the future (e.g. see this key picture). That information can be used by users and validators to indicate features which will have (after that date) likely become obsolete, and which should thus then be resurveyed (and possibly removed or marked as e.g. shop=vacant or replaced with another feature which came instead of it). To warn consumers that the shop will be closed in the future, you may additionally use e.g. opening_hours=closed; 2025 Jan 01 - 2025 Oct 04 Mo-Fr 08:00-17:00; Sa-Su,PH off (to indicate shop will be closed after 4 Oct 2025; check format in opening_hours evaluator)

=* in the past

• in combination with abandoned:*=* and disused:*=* to provide extra data on when specified feature stopped being used/operational but are still physically existing on the ground. E.g. abandoned:building=train_station, abandoned:building=industrial, or abandoned:military=bunker. Note that if some of those abandoned features might host another feature (e.g. a music club POI inside an ex-bunker), those should preferably be mapped separately (see: One feature, one OSM element) to avoid issues with misunderstanding what feature that =* actually refers to.
• in combination with other lifecycle prefixes (like removed:*=* or razed:*=* or destroyed:*=* or demolished:*=*) for features that no longer exist on the ground but have high chance of being incorrectly re-added to the map by armchair mappers (e.g. due to available imagery not being up to date). In such cases (e.g. removed:building=house + =*) it help informs the mapper which imagery may be used to confirm (and which can not).

Possible issues / invalid uses

If not used carefully this tag can break things. For example:

• map features (such as roads) which are no longer existent will be displayed as existing or confuse routers (see also troll tag). In particular dates in the past should not be used for roads or other important features as most rendering and routing engines will ignore it and provide wrong information. Some developers have repeatedly expressed their unwillingness to support =*. Somewhat better supported (but still support is not universal yet) are:
  • especially for e.g. highway=* are conditional restrictions, e.g. motor_vehicle:conditional=no @ 2018 May 22-2018 Oct 7
  • for shop=*, amenity=* and similar use opening_hours=*, e.g. opening_hours=Mo-Fr 08:00-20:00; Sa-Su,PH 08:00-12:00; 2015 May 01 - 2025 Jun 30 off

• It's also not always obvious what =* refers to if applied to an object with multiple tags. source:end_date=* might help if present, but preferably the features should be split (see One feature, one OSM element for more details). E.g. try to understand what version 2 of 3848705👁 relation
   3848705 actually means.

• Sometimes it is erroneously used to note planned completion date of construction – for example of highway=construction, though this use should use opening_date=*, even if that date is yet in the future.

Alternatives

Conditional Lifecycle Prefix

For features to be abandoned or demolished in the future you could consider using a conditional lifecycle prefix.

For example, if it is currently 2025, and a school is known to be abandoned at the end of the year starting 2026 you could tag it as,

• amenity=school - currently an in-use school
• abandoned:amenity:conditional=school @ (2026-) - but starting from 2026 it will be an abandoned school

Then once the change happens the conditional is removed to be simply

• abandoned:amenity=school

See also

• Comparison of life cycle concepts
• opening_date=*
• start_date=*
• check_date=*