EAN-13 Specification

EAN 13 the international version of the UPC. It contains two digits more than the UPC, requiring a total of 13 printed characters.

Structure

Each EAN bar code character is comprised of two bars and two spaces. The wide elements are multiples of the narrow elements. Wide elements are composed of one, two, three, or four narrow elements. There are a total of seven elements in each EAN character.

Symbol Creation

An EAN 13 symbol consists of a start character, a flag character, the left side data field, the left bar character, the right side data field, the check digit and stop character.

Start Character

The start character is used at the beginning of the symbol to provide the bar code reader with start instructions. The start character pattern is 101.

Left Side Data Field

The left side data field consists of six odd and even parity characters. Odd parity characters consist of three or five bars while even parity characters contain two or four bars. A suppressed number system is coded by the sequence of odd and even parity characters used in the left side data field.

Flag character

A suppressed number system is implied by the sequence of odd and even parity characters. First determine the number system required. Then use the table below to find the corresponding odd and even parity sequence which the left side data characters will follow.

Left Side Odd Parity Characters

Odd parity characters are comprised of three or five bars.

Left Side Even Parity Characters

Even parity characters are comprised of two or four bars.

left Bar

The left bar is a special character used to separate the left side data field from the right side data field. The left bar character pattern is 01010.

Right Side Data Field

The right side data field consists of six even parity characters: five digits plus the modulus 10 check digit.

Right Side Even Parity Characters

Unique bar patterns are used to distinguish the characters used in the right side data field from those used in the left side data field. For the right side data field, even parity characters are used which are different from the even parity characters used for the left side data field.

Stop Character

The stop character is used to signify the end of the symbol. The stop character pattern is 101.

EAN Character Set

Data  Left Hand A  Left Hand B  Right Hand

  0	0001101      0100111 	  1110010
  1 	0011001      0110011 	  1100110
  2 	0010011      0011011 	  1101100
  3 	0111101      0100001 	  1000010
  4 	0100011      0011101 	  1011100
  5 	0110001      0111001 	  1001110
  6 	0101111      0000101 	  1010000
  7 	0111011      0010001 	  1000100
  8 	0110111      0001001 	  1001000
  9 	0001011      0010111 	  1110100

First Flag Character Encodation for EAN 13

First Flag  Second Flag	Data Characters
Character   Character	1  2  3  4  5

    0    	A	A  A  A  A  A
    1		A	A  B  A  B  B
    2		A	A  B  B  A  B
    3		A	A  B  B  B  A
    4		A	B  A  A  B  B
    5		A	B  B  A  A  B
    6		A	B  B  B  A  A
    7		A	B  A  B  A  B
    8		A	B  A  B  B  A
    9		A	B  B  A  B  A

Check Character

Step 1: Designate the least significant digit postion as odd.

        5 7 6 3 5 7 9 0 1 2 5 8
        E O E O E O E O E O E O

Step 2: Sum all the digits in the odd (O) positions

        7+3+7+0+2+8 = 27

Step 3: Multiply the result by 3

        27 * 3 = 81

Step 4: Sum all the digits in the even (E) positions.

        5 + 6 + 5 + 9 + 1 + 5 = 31

Step 5: Add the result of Step 2 with the result of Step 4.

        81 + 31 = 112

Step 6: Subtract from the next higher multiple of 10.

        120 - 112 = 8.  

        In this example, the check digit is 8.

Country Codes

EAN Prefix Country ISO country code
00 to 13 UCC (USA & Canada) us/ca
20 to 29 In-store numbers  
30 to 37 GENCOD-EAN France fr
380 BCCI (Bulgaria) bg
383 SANA (Slovenia) si
385 CRO-EAN (Croatia) hr
387 EAN-BIH (Bosnia-Herzegovina) ba
400 to 440 CCG (Germany) de
45 + 49 Distribution Code left DCC (Japan) jp
460 to 469 UNISCAN - EAN Russia (Russian Federation) ru
471 CAN (Taiwan) tw
474 EAN Estonia ee
475 EAN Latvia lv
476 EAN Azerbaijan az
477 EAN Lithuania lt
478 EAN Uzbekistan uz
479 EAN Sri Lanka lk
480 PANC (Philippines) ph
481 EAN Belarus by
482 EAN Ukraine ua
484 EAN Moldova md
485 EAN Armenia am
486 EAN Georgia ge
487 EAN Kazakhstan kz
489 HKANA (Hong-Kong) hk
50 E Centre UK uk
520 EAN HELLAS (Greece) gr
528 EAN Lebanon lb
529 EAN Cyprus cy
531 EAN-MAC (FYR Macedonia) mk
535 EAN Malta mt
539 EAN Ireland ie
54 ICODIF/EAN Belgium.Luxembourg be/lu
560 CODIPOR (Portugal) pt
569 EAN Iceland is
57 EAN Danmark dk
590 EAN Poland pl
594 EAN Romania ro
599 EAN Hungary hu
600 - 601 EAN South Africa za
609 EAN Mauritius mu
611 EAN Maroc (Morocco) ma
613 EAN Algeria dz
616 EAN Kenya ke
619 Tunicode (Tunisia) tn
621 EAN Syria sy
622 EAN Egypt eg
625 EAN Jordan jo
626 EAN Iran ir
628 EAN Saudi Arabia sa
64 EAN Finland fi
690 - 693 Article Numbering Centre of China - ANCC cn
70 EAN Norge (Norway) no
729 Israeli Bar Code Association - EAN Israel il
73 EAN Sweden se
740 EAN Guatemala gt
741 EAN El Salvador sv
742 EAN Honduras hn
743 EAN Nicaragua ni
744 EAN Costa Rica cr
745 EAN Panama pa
746 EAN Republica Dominicana do
750 AMECE (Mexico) mx
759 EAN Venezuela ve
76 EAN Switzerland ch
770 IAC (Colombia) co
773 EAN Uruguay uy
775 APC - EAN Peru pe
777 EAN Bolivia bo
779 CODIGO - EAN Argentina ar
780 EAN Chile cl
784 EAN Paraguay py
786 ECOP (Ecuador) ec
789 EAN Brasil br
80 to 83 INDICOD (Italy) it
84 AECOC (Spain) es
850 Camera de Comercio de la Republica de Cuba cu
858 EAN Slovakia sk
859 EAN Czech cz
860 EAN YU (Yugoslavia) yu
867 EAN DPR Korea (North Korea) kp
869 UCCET (Turkey) tr
87 EAN Nederland nl
880 EAN Korea (South Korea) kr
885 EAN Thailand th
888 SANC (Singapore) sg
890 EAN India in
893 EAN Vietnam vn
899 EAN Indonesia id
90 - 91 EAN Austria at
93 EAN Australia au
94 EAN New Zealand nz
955 Malaysian Article Numbering Council (MANC) my
958 EAN Macau mo
977 Periodicals (ISSN)  
978 - 979 Books (ISBN)  
980 Refund receipts  
981 - 982 Common currency coupons  
99 Coupons