GS1 barcodes in India: how to get them and which one you need

Most people meet barcodes for the first time on a form. A marketplace asks for a GTIN, a retail chain asks for an EAN, or an export buyer asks for barcoded cartons. Search for it online and you will also find people selling "EAN codes" cheaply.

I would not buy them.

In India, barcode numbers starting with 890 come only from GS1 India, and only the brand owner can apply. The process is short: count your products, keep five documents ready, apply online and pay the fee. Allotment usually takes 7 to 10 working days.

The harder question is which barcode goes where. A retail pack, a shipping carton and a pallet each need a different code. I have written this lesson the way I would explain it to a new member of our team: the terms first, then the steps, then the codes.

Five terms to know first

Let us start with five words that the rest of this lesson uses.

1. GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is the number that identifies one product. It can be 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits long.
2. The barcode is only the set of bars that carries the number to a scanner. The same GTIN can sit inside different kinds of barcode.
3. EAN-13 is the barcode on almost every retail pack in India. It carries a 13-digit GTIN.
4. The GS1 Company Prefix is the part of the number that belongs to your company. GS1 India allots it, and you fill in the rest for each product.
5. The check digit is the last digit. Software works it out from the other twelve, so a scanner can catch a wrong read.

GS1 India's own explainer on EAN-13 (June 2021) splits the number the same way: company prefix, product code and check digit.

What does 890 actually mean?

890 is the prefix GS1 gave to GS1 India. It tells you which GS1 office licensed the number. It does not tell you where the product was made.

Think of the RJ-14 on a Jaipur car's number plate. It says which RTO registered the car, not which factory built it. An Indian brand that gets its goods made abroad still uses its 890 numbers. GS1's support page on this question answers it in one line: the prefix does not show the country of origin.

So 890 matters for one reason. It shows the number came from GS1 India, the only body in India that can issue it.

That is all we need from it.

How to get GS1 barcodes in India, step by step

GS1 India sets out the process on its barcode registration page (read on 2 October 2026). Here it is in plain steps, with my own notes added.

1. Check who should apply. Only the brand owner, or an entity the brand owner authorises, can apply. If you make products on job work for another brand, that brand applies, not you.
2. Count the GTINs you need. Every variant, size and pack count needs its own number. GS1 India offers blocks of 100, 1,000, 10,000 or 1,00,000 numbers. I would leave room for a few years of new products, because every new variant, size and pack count will need one.
3. Keep the documents ready. GS1 India asks for the applicant's PAN, a turnover proof such as the balance sheet page (new companies are exempt), a request letter on your letterhead, proof of company status such as the GST certificate, partnership deed or ROC certificate, and a cancelled cheque.
4. Check the fees. There is a registration fee, a subscription fee and a refundable security deposit, and the amount depends on your turnover and the number of barcodes. GS1 India has published a new fee structure from 1 October 2026, so read the current table and not an old quotation.
5. Fill in the online form and pay. GS1 India says allotment usually takes 7 to 10 working days once the form, documents and fee reach it.
6. Give numbers to products. Keep one master sheet with the GTIN, product name, size, pack count and the date you allotted it. Never move a number to another product later.

GS1 India also says it does not appoint or promote any facilitators, intermediaries or agents to allot barcode numbers. Anyone selling "GS1 registration" as a service is, at best, filling in the same form for you.

My advice is to fill it in yourself. The form is not complicated, and you learn your own numbers in the process.

Which barcode goes where?

This is where most mistakes happen. We choose a barcode by asking one question: where will it be scanned?

The retail pack: EAN-13

Use the EAN-13 on anything sold one piece at a time. If the pack is too small for it, GS1 allows the shorter EAN-8. The GS1 General Specifications (Release 26.0, January 2026) say GTIN-8s are assigned one by one, on request, so ask GS1 India for them separately.

The outer carton: its own GTIN

Here is a rule of the trade that saves a lot of trouble later. A carton of 12 is a different product from a single piece, and a carton of 24 is different again. The General Specifications say every trade item that differs in any respect gets its own GTIN, and that includes groupings like these.

So never print the unit's EAN-13 as the carton's code. A warehouse that scans it will book one piece where it received twelve.

I count this among the costliest small mistakes in barcoding, because nobody notices it until the stock count goes wrong.

On cartons, GS1 allows GS1-128, or ITF-14 where printing conditions are rough, such as printing straight onto corrugated board.

Logistics: GS1-128

GS1-128 is the barcode warehouses rely on. It carries several pieces of data in one code, and each starts with a short Application Identifier (AI) shown in brackets. These are the four we meet most often.

1. (01) is the GTIN.
2. (10) is the batch or lot number, up to 20 characters.
3. (17) is the expiry date, written as YYMMDD.
4. (00) is the SSCC, the 18-digit number that identifies one pallet or shipment.

The GS1 Logistic Label Guideline (Release 1.3, July 2019) calls the SSCC the single mandatory element on a logistic label. Everything else on that label is optional. If you are planning batch-wise records, our lesson on batch and lot traceability shows where these AIs fit.

QR codes and GS1 Digital Link

There are two kinds of QR code on packs, and we should not mix them up.

A plain QR code holds a web link and nothing more. A billing scanner cannot use it to find your product.

A QR code with GS1 Digital Link holds a web address built around your GTIN. It looks like https://example.com/01/ followed by the 14-digit GTIN, then /10/ and the batch. A phone opens the page, and a billing system can pick the GTIN out of the same code. GS1 describes it on its GS1 Digital Link page.

Should you drop the EAN-13 for a QR code? I would not, yet. GS1's 2D Barcodes at Retail Point-of-Sale Implementation Guideline (Release 1.1.0, December 2025) aims for billing scanners worldwide to read the GTIN from both kinds of code by the end of 2027. It also says a 2D code cannot be the only barcode on a pack until such scanning is everywhere. So print both, with the same GTIN in each.

Why cheap barcodes fail

Numbers bought from a reseller fail for plain reasons, and none of them is about print quality.

1. The number is licensed to someone else. GS1 runs a lookup called Verified by GS1 that shows which company a GTIN belongs to. GS1 says this is often enough for marketplaces to check a new listing. Your product will show another company's name.
2. You have no allotment from GS1 India. When a buyer asks for proof, you have nothing to show.
3. The number may already be in use. You cannot know how many sellers bought the same block.
4. You cannot grow. A new variant needs a new number, and you have no company prefix of your own to make one from.

GS1 India's home page carries its own warning: take care before buying barcodes, and avoid unauthorised sources.

I will be clear about our side too. Jagannath Labels, our group's label company, can print your barcode and check that it scans. Neither we nor any label printer can give you a GTIN.

That number comes from GS1 India, in your company's name, and we print what you own.

When does a product need a new GTIN?

Once the numbers are allotted, the next mistakes come with the first product change. GS1's GTIN Management Standard (Release 1.1, September 2023) sets the rules, and three of them surprise people in India.

1. Any change to the declared net quantity printed on the pack needs a new GTIN. A 200 g pack that becomes 180 g is a new product for the barcode.
2. A change in the number of units per case needs a new GTIN for the case.
3. If a price is printed into the pack artwork itself, adding, changing or removing it needs a new GTIN. A price on a removable sticker does not count. If your MRP goes on with a batch coder at packing, ask GS1 India how the rule applies to you.

A change of more than 20% in any dimension or in gross weight also needs a new GTIN. So does a change of the primary brand on the pack.

A checklist before you print

1. The GTIN comes from your own GS1 India allotment, and Verified by GS1 shows your company against it.
2. Each variant, size and pack count has its own GTIN in your master sheet.
3. The carton has its own GTIN, different from the unit inside it.
4. The bars are dark on a white or light background. Retail barcodes are graded under red light of 660 nm, as per the General Specifications, so red, orange or yellow bars look almost blank to a scanner.
5. You have scanned a printed proof, and not just the image on your screen.
6. For retail packs, you have looked at GS1 India's barcode verification service. It recommends sending barcodes at the artwork stage, before bulk printing, and once a year after that.

If you are setting this up for the first time and are not sure which code goes on which pack, send us your product list with pack sizes through the contact page. We will tell you what we would print where.

You are free to take that list to any label printer. I would rather you get the codes right than get them from us.