EAN Number

The European Article Number — now officially called the International Article Number, though the EAN abbreviation stuck — is the barcode standard used for retail products across Europe and most international markets. The familiar EAN-13 barcode you see on supermarket products encodes a 13-digit number that uniquely identifies that exact item.

An EAN is made up of a GS1 company prefix (which identifies the brand owner), a product reference assigned by that brand, and a final check digit used to verify the scan. Because the company prefix is licensed uniquely to one business, every EAN is globally unique.

These three terms cause a lot of confusion, but the relationship is simple. GTIN is the umbrella standard. An EAN-13 is a GTIN-13 (13 digits, used in Europe and internationally). A UPC is a GTIN-12 (12 digits, used in the US and Canada). They are all the same kind of identifier in different lengths.

In practice this means a product with a US UPC can be sold in Europe — you simply add a leading zero to turn the 12-digit UPC into a 13-digit GTIN-13. When a European marketplace asks for an "EAN", a valid GTIN-13 derived from a UPC will work.

To create genuine EANs you license a company prefix from GS1 (or your national GS1 member organisation). You then assign your own product numbers under that prefix and generate the barcodes.

If you resell branded goods, the manufacturer has already assigned an EAN — it is printed on the packaging, and you simply reuse it. If you produce your own private-label products, you need your own GS1 prefix so the EANs are registered to your brand. Marketplaces increasingly check EANs against the GS1 registry, so unregistered or resold barcodes are risky.