How to Get a Barcode for Your Product

Almost everyone searching for how to get a barcode is really asking two different questions at once, and the answer is different for each. One half is free and takes about thirty seconds. The other half involves an organisation called GS1 and costs money. Knowing which half you actually need is most of the work.

The barcode is two things, and only one of them costs money

A retail barcode is a number plus a picture of that number.

The number is a GTIN — a Global Trade Item Number. It is what identifies your product, globally and unambiguously, in every till system and warehouse database that has ever scanned it. GS1, the not-for-profit that maintains the standard, describes the split precisely: a GTIN is the number that identifies the product itself, and the U.P.C. is the barcode that allows that number to be scanned by a barcode reader.

The picture — the striped image you put on the packaging — is just a rendering of that number in a machine-readable font. Any barcode generator can draw it, including this one, for free, in a few seconds.

Do you actually need a registered barcode?

The test is: will anyone outside your business scan this?

If every row that applies to you is a "no", stop reading and go and generate a Code 128 barcode. You are done, and it cost nothing. The rest of this guide is for people in the first two rows.

Step 1: License a GTIN from GS1

GS1 is the only body that issues GTINs. It operates as a federation of national member organisations — GS1 US, GS1 UK, GS1 Ireland, GS1 Australia and so on — and you deal with the one for the country your business is registered in, not the country you sell into.

There are two ways to buy in, and the right one depends entirely on how many products you have:

Whichever you choose, the output is the same: a number, or a block of numbers, registered in the GS1 database against your company name. That registration is the thing you are actually paying for.

What it costs

There is no single global price, which is why "how much does a barcode cost" gets such inconsistent answers online. Fees are set by each national GS1 organisation.

Two concrete data points, both read from GS1's own sites on 1 September 2026:

• GS1 US licenses a single GTIN for a one-time fee of $30, explicitly with no annual renewal fee. Licensing a Company Prefix instead means signing up for GS1 US membership, which does renew annually.
• GS1 Ireland does not publish one flat price. Its barcode licence fees are quoted at an annual rate excluding VAT, valid for the January–December calendar year, and banded by company size according to annual turnover — with new start-ups banded on estimated turnover.

That turnover-banded structure is common across Europe, so budget by asking your national organisation for the band your business falls into rather than trusting a figure from a blog. Prices change annually and this page is not a price list.

Getting a barcode in your country

The process is the same everywhere, because it is the same standard:

1. Find the GS1 member organisation for the country your business is registered in.
2. Apply for a barcode licence, giving your registered company details and turnover band.
3. Receive your Company Prefix (or your individual GTINs).
4. Assign a GTIN to each product and record it in GS1's product database.
5. Generate and print the barcode artwork.

Ireland is a good worked example because it is asked about so often. GS1 Ireland allocates a Global Company Prefix to a named, registered company; you then create your barcodes from that prefix. The licence is annual, quoted ex VAT, and scaled to your size. There is no way to buy an Irish retail barcode that skips the prefix step — the prefix is what makes the number yours.

Allow time for it. GS1 UK notes that it may take up to 72 hours from joining for your numbers to become valid on Amazon. Registration is not instant, and packaging deadlines are unforgiving.

Step 2: Work out how many numbers you need

One GTIN per distinct sellable item. The rule catches people out because "distinct" is stricter than it sounds:

• Each size is a separate product.
• Each colour or flavour is a separate product.
• A single unit and a multipack of the same thing are separate products.
• Changing the artwork on the box does not need a new number. Changing what or how much is inside does.

A t-shirt in three sizes and two colours is six GTINs, not one. Work this out before you choose between a Company Prefix and individual numbers, because it usually decides the answer for you.

Step 3: Generate the barcode image

This is the free part. Once you own the number, drawing it is a rendering job:

1. Open the barcode generator.
2. Pick the format — EAN-13 or UPC-A for retail, Code 128 for internal use.
3. Type in your GTIN.
4. Set the size you need and export a PNG or SVG for your packaging artwork.

If you have a whole range to produce, the bulk barcode printer takes a list of codes and lays them all out in one pass, which beats exporting forty images by hand.

Give the printer some room. A barcode needs its quiet zone — the blank margin either side of the bars — and it needs enough contrast. Dark bars on a light background, never light bars on dark, and never printed over a busy photo.

Step 4: Scan it back before you print

This step costs a minute and saves entire print runs. Take the artwork you just exported, run it through a barcode reader, and check that the digits that come back are exactly the GTIN you licensed.

It catches the two mistakes that actually happen in practice: a transposed digit somewhere between the GS1 portal and your design file, and artwork that has been scaled or recoloured until it no longer decodes. Both are cheap to fix on screen and expensive to fix on ten thousand printed cartons.

Why cheap resold barcodes are a false economy

Search for barcodes and you will find sites selling them for a fraction of a GS1 licence. These are generally numbers from prefixes that were issued to some other company, being resold on.

The problem is not that the numbers are invalid — they scan perfectly well. The problem is what they are registered to. Look up such a number in the GS1 database and it resolves to whoever licensed the original prefix, not to you.

That lookup is exactly the check large marketplaces run. GS1 UK states that Amazon have mandated the use of GS1 GTINs to list products on their site, and that Amazon could remove a listing if a GTIN is not found in the GS1 database. If you are selling into that channel, a number that does not resolve to your company is a listing waiting to be pulled — after you have printed the packaging.

For a stockroom or a market stall, none of this matters and you do not need to buy anything at all. For retail, buy from GS1.

Which format to use

If you want the detail on how each symbology encodes data, barcode types explained covers it properly.

Frequently asked questions