EAN-13 (International Article Number)

What is EAN-13?

EAN-13 (originally European Article Number, now officially International Article Number) is the most widely used retail barcode symbology in the world. It encodes a 13-digit GTIN (specifically a GTIN-13) as a pattern of vertical bars and spaces that can be read by any standard barcode scanner.

Virtually every product sold in a retail store outside of North America carries an EAN-13 barcode. Even within the US and Canada, EAN-13 barcodes are accepted at point-of-sale terminals alongside the shorter 12-digit UPC-A. The human-readable digits printed below the barcode are the GTIN-13 itself - the same number that is encoded into SGTIN RFID tags when products are tracked with RAIN RFID.

Used for: Retail point-of-sale worldwide, inventory management, product catalogues, library systems, and as the source identifier for SGTIN EPC encoding on RFID tags.

Structure

An EAN-13 number is 13 digits long. The boundary between the GS1 Company Prefix and the Item Reference is variable - GS1 assigns company prefixes of different lengths depending on how many product numbers a company needs. However, the total always sums to 13 digits.

Field	Digits	Description
GS1 Prefix	2 - 3	Identifies the GS1 Member Organisation that assigned the company prefix. Does not necessarily indicate country of origin - it indicates where the company registered. For example, `00` - `13` is GS1 US, `30` - `37` is GS1 France, and `45` / `49` is GS1 Japan.
Company Prefix	4 - 10	The GS1 Company Prefix assigned to the brand owner. Together with the GS1 Prefix, this identifies who owns the number. Longer prefixes leave fewer digits for item references (and vice versa).
Item Reference	1 - 6	Assigned by the brand owner to identify a specific product (SKU) within their allocated number range.
Check Digit	1	The final digit, calculated using the GS1 mod-10 algorithm. It catches scanning and transcription errors.

Example: EAN-13

5901234567897

GS1 Prefix Company Prefix Item Reference Check Digit

How EAN-13 relates to EPC / RFID

The 13-digit number printed beneath every EAN-13 barcode is a GTIN-13. When this product is tagged with an RFID chip, the GTIN-13 is converted to a serialised EPC - specifically an SGTIN - through a well-defined GS1 process:

Pad to GTIN-14: A leading zero is prepended, plus an indicator digit. For the base trade item the indicator is 0, giving a 14-digit string that starts with 0 followed by the original 13 digits (minus the check digit in the next step).
Drop the check digit: The check digit (last digit of the GTIN-13) is removed because it can always be recalculated. This leaves 13 digits.
Split into fields: The indicator digit (first digit of the GTIN-14) is combined with the item reference. The GS1 Company Prefix is placed into the company prefix field. The partition value in the EPC binary header records where the boundary falls.
Add a serial number: A unique serial number is appended to create the full SGTIN. In SGTIN-96 the serial is numeric only (up to 38 bits); in SGTIN-198 it can be alphanumeric (up to 140 bits).

Example mapping

Layer	Value
EAN-13 barcode	`5901234567897`
GTIN-14 (zero-padded)	`05901234567897`
Indicator	`0`(first digit of GTIN-14)
Company Prefix	`5901234`
Item Reference (in SGTIN)	`056789`(indicator 0 + reference 56789)
Serial Number	`1001`(assigned per individual item)
Pure Identity URI	`urn:epc:id:sgtin:5901234.056789.1001`

Company Prefix Item Reference Indicator Check Digit Serial Number

This means the number you read under an EAN-13 barcode and the identifier stored on an SGTIN RFID tag represent the same product - the RFID tag simply adds a serial number so that every individual item can be distinguished.

Where EAN-13 is used

Retail point-of-sale: Supermarkets, department stores, and convenience stores worldwide scan EAN-13 barcodes at checkout.
Global trade: EAN-13 is the standard product identifier in over 100 countries and is administered by GS1 Member Organisations around the world.
Warehousing and logistics: Used on inner packs and individual units; cartons and pallets typically use GTIN-14 (ITF-14) barcodes that incorporate the same company prefix.
Libraries: ISBN (International Standard Book Number) for books and ISSN for periodicals are compatible with the EAN-13 format via dedicated GS1 Prefixes (978, 979 for ISBN; 977 for ISSN).
Healthcare: Some over-the-counter health products use EAN-13, though prescription pharmaceuticals increasingly use GS1 DataMatrix with GTIN plus expiry date and lot number.

Related EPC schemes

Source

GS1 EAN/UPC Barcode Standards and the GS1 General Specifications. The GTIN-to-SGTIN encoding procedure is defined in the GS1 EPC Tag Data Standard.