Everything About Barcodes

UPC-A is the 12-digit barcode used on virtually every retail product sold in the United States and Canada.

EAN-13 is the 13-digit barcode used globally outside North America. It extends UPC-A with a leading country prefix digit.

GS1 is the international nonprofit that manages barcode standards, company prefixes, and the global supply chain identification system.

ISBN-13 barcodes all start with 978 or 979. They're EAN-13 codes with a special GS1 prefix assigned to the book industry.

GTIN-14 is the 14-digit barcode used on cases, inner packs, and pallets in the supply chain.

UPC-E is a compressed 6-digit barcode (8 with guard digits) used when standard UPC-A won't fit on small packaging.

The check digit is the last digit of any UPC or EAN barcode. It's mathematically derived from the other digits to detect scanning errors.

The MX Engine is upc.dev's multi-source intelligence pipeline that aggregates dozens of authoritative data sources for every scanned barcode.