GS1 Prefix Lookup
Read the GS1 prefix off any GTIN, UPC, or EAN and see which GS1 Member Organisation issued it.
What this does not tell you
This shows the issuing organisation, not the company and not the country of manufacture. Finding out which business holds a given prefix is a lookup against GS1’s own registry, and we deliberately do not guess at it here. If you need that, go to GS1 directly.
How to read a GS1 prefix
The first three digits of a GTIN-13 are the GS1 prefix. They identify the GS1 Member Organisation that issued the company prefix the number was built from. Everything after that is the rest of the company prefix, the item reference the brand owner chose, and the check digit.
Not the country of origin
This is the most common misreading of a barcode, and it gets repeated constantly. A prefix tells you where the brand owner registered with GS1, not where the goods were made. A UK company manufacturing in Vietnam ships product with a 50x prefix. A company that licensed its prefix from GS1 US years ago keeps that prefix even after moving its operations entirely to Europe. Treating a prefix as a country of origin label is simply wrong, and in some markets making that claim on packaging would be a labelling problem of its own.
Padding matters before you read
A 12-digit UPC-A has to be padded to 13 digits first. Read three digits straight off a UPC and you get the wrong prefix for every US number. A 14-digit GTIN goes the other way: its leading digit is the indicator digit for packaging level, not part of the prefix, so it is stripped before reading. The tool above does both and tells you which it did.
Restricted ranges are worth recognising
Prefixes 020 to 029, 040 to 049, and 200 to 299 are restricted circulation numbers. These are assigned locally rather than by GS1, usually by a retailer for in-store use such as weighed produce or shelf labels. They are valid inside that store and meaningless outside it, so a product carrying one cannot be listed on a marketplace or sold through another retailer. Seeing one on a number you were sold as a “real barcode” is a red flag.
A valid prefix is not a licence
A number can carry a legitimate prefix, pass check digit validation, and still not belong to you. Codes bought from barcode resellers are typically drawn from a prefix licensed to somebody else years ago, which is why Amazon and Walmart reject them despite them looking perfectly valid. Only a GS1 licence in your own name establishes that a GTIN is yours.
Own your GTINs? Make them scannable.
A GS1 Digital Link QR code turns your GTIN into a link a shopper can scan. Generate one free, or host a conformance-tested resolver so the code resolves in production.
Related tools and guides
Built by SunriseQR, an official GS1 US Solution Partner and hosted GS1 Digital Link resolver. Think a prefix is listed wrong? Let us know.
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