Google Maps has no QR code button. Its help page on sharing lists sending directions to your phone, sharing a place or a route through another app, embedding a map and printing directions, and none of those is a QR code. So a Maps code is always two steps: get a link, then turn it into a code somewhere else.
Pick the link by what the scan should do. Google's Maps URLs documentation defines two that suit a printed code:
- Search,
https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=plus a place name or address, drops a pin on your place. Use it on a flyer or a business card. - Directions,
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/?api=1&destination=plus the address, starts a route to you. With no origin in the link, Google starts from the most relevant location, such as the phone's own. Use it on a sign at a car park entrance or a card handed out with bookings.
Google says these links open in the Google Maps app on Android and iPhone when it is installed, and in a browser when it is not. api=1 is required: without it, Google ignores every other parameter and just opens Maps. Encode the place name the way Google's examples do, spaces as + and commas as %2C; the URL encoder writes spaces as %20, which Google accepts too.
Point at the exact business. A name can match more than one place, such as two branches of the same chain. Google's documentation says a place ID, added as query_place_id, is the best guarantee of linking to the right place, and its place ID page has a finder to look yours up. The cost is length. Google's Sydney Opera House example grows from 66 to 109 bytes with its place ID added, and the grid goes from 37 by 37 to 45 by 45. On the 20mm Business card preset that pushes each square under the 0.4mm floor, and the sizing panel asks for at least 22mm.
Tracking and UTM tags. Nobody can count scans of a code that opens Google Maps directly, and the generator marks it as static once your link is in. UTM tags on a Maps link never reach your analytics either, because the visit lands on Google, not your site. Counting would need a redirect of your own in front of the Maps link; tracking QR code scans walks through it.
Printing it. Size the code for where people stand. The Yard sign preset, 300mm, scans from roughly 3m, about ten times its width, which suits a sign read from the footpath or a car. Keep the Square pattern for anything left outdoors, and check contrast and finish against QR code best practices for print. Test the downloaded file in the QR code reader, which shows the link a scanner will open.