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How to open an ArcGIS FeatureServer in QGIS

The short answer: Browser panel, right-click ArcGIS REST Servers, New Connection, and paste the URL up to and including FeatureServer, with no layer number and no query string.

QGIS speaks ArcGIS REST natively. You do not need a plugin, and you do not need to download anything first. Most of the trouble people hit is giving it the wrong slice of the URL.

Which part of the URL

You probably have something like this:

https://services.arcgis.com/AbCdEf123/arcgis/rest/services/Parcels/FeatureServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&outFields=*&f=json

Cut it back to the service:

https://services.arcgis.com/AbCdEf123/arcgis/rest/services/Parcels/FeatureServer

Stop at FeatureServer. No /0, no /query, no ?. QGIS wants the service, and it will find the layers inside it for you.

If you do not have a URL yet, how to get data out of an ArcGIS web map covers finding one.

Adding the connection

  1. Open QGIS. If the Browser panel is not visible, turn it on under View, Panels, Browser.
  2. Scroll to ArcGIS REST Servers. Right-click it and choose New Connection.
  3. Give it a name you will recognise later. "Parcels" beats "Untitled connection 3".
  4. Paste the URL into URL.
  5. Leave authentication empty for a public service. Click OK.
  6. Expand your new connection. The layers appear. Double-click one, or drag it onto the map.

That is it. The layer is live: QGIS fetches features from the server as you pan.

Making it usable

A live REST layer is convenient and slow. Every pan is a round trip, and it is at the mercy of somebody else's server.

If you are going to do real work on it, right-click the layer, choose Export, then Save Features As, and write it to a GeoPackage. Now it is local, fast, and still there when the service has an outage. Do this before any serious analysis.

Two things to set while you are there: pick a sensible CRS rather than accepting whatever turned up, and only export the fields you need if the layer has ninety of them.

When it will not load

"Connection failed" or nothing appears. Paste the URL into a browser first. If the browser shows the ArcGIS REST page, the URL is fine and the problem is QGIS. If the browser shows an error too, the URL is wrong or the service is down.

You included the layer number. Very common. FeatureServer/0 is a layer; FeatureServer is the service. QGIS wants the service.

It is a MapServer, not a FeatureServer. MapServers often serve images only. QGIS will add it, and you will get a picture with nothing to click. Check whether the service lists Query under Supported Operations. The difference between the two is worth five minutes.

It needs a token. If the original URL had token= on it, that token came from the website's session and is not yours. It will expire, and it may be tied to their domain. The data is not public in the way you assumed.

It loads but only shows some features. That is the server's maximum record count, usually 1000 or 2000. QGIS pages through it as you zoom, but for the whole dataset use Export, Save Features As, which requests it properly.

It works in a browser but not in a web app you are building. Different problem entirely: that is CORS. QGIS does not care about CORS; browsers do.

Skipping the URL surgery

Trimming the URL correctly is the fiddly part, and it is different for QGIS and ArcGIS Pro: Pro wants ?f=json on the end, and tile services want their placeholders rewritten entirely.

Geo Hound does that for you. It catches the service while you are looking at the map, then gives you a QGIS button and an ArcGIS button on the card. One click puts the correctly-formatted URL on your clipboard, ready to paste into the connection dialog. It also tests whether the service supports CORS, so you know in advance whether it will work in a browser app as well as in QGIS.