Barcodes in General

We are manufacturing a product (outside the USA or Canada) and need a barcode for retail in the US or Canada.

First of all, while it's theoratically possible that USA / Canada retail checkouts read EAN barcodes it can't be taken for granted. Therefore, in the USA or Canada you will have to put an UPC barcode on your product that replaces the usual EAN barcode. It's permitted to have both codes on a single package but it's not recommended. Usually you will have different packaging for abroad markets anyway so this shouldn't be a problem.

Re. obtaining an article number for your product you have two options:

1. Get a manufacturer prefix from the target country's GS1 branch (see below for links).

Assign an article number for your product, create an UPC barcode and put it on your packaging replacing the usual EAN code.

2. If you only have a single trading partner in the target country you might be able to obtain an UPC number from your partner. Large distributors or retail chains in the US have dedicated manufacturer prefixes for imported goods and should be able to provide a number from their stock of UPC GTINs.

More information on the GS1 website.

Shortcut to GS1 Canada
Shortcut to GS1 USA

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