Skip to content
Benchmo
Language: English

UPC barcode generator

Turn your UPC number into a barcode that scans, with the check digit worked out or checked for you.

To sell in shops you need numbers registered to your company (GS1). Any valid number will scan, but only a registered one is yours.

Processed on your device. Files are not uploaded.

A UPC-A has 12 digits, but you only need to know 11 of them. The last one is a check digit, calculated from the rest so a scanner can tell when it has misread a bar.

Type 03600029145 and the tool adds a 2, making 036000291452. Type 036000291453 instead and you get “The last digit should be 2. A wrong check digit will not scan at a register.” That refusal is deliberate: a barcode with a bad check digit prints perfectly and then fails at every till.

UPC-A, UPC-E or EAN-13?

The type menu on this page offers three symbols. Pick by the package and by the number you were given:

  • UPC-A for nearly everything sold in the US and Canada: boxes, bottles, bags, anything with room for a symbol about an inch and a half wide.
  • UPC-E only when the pack is genuinely too small, such as lip balm or a pack of gum, and only if your number has a UPC-E form. It is the same product number with zeros squeezed out, so it carries no extra information.
  • EAN-13 when your number was issued as 13 digits, for example by a GS1 office outside North America. US store scanners read EAN-13 too.

Typing a UPC-E

Enter the short form, not the 12-digit number: a leading 0 or 1, six digits, and optionally the check digit. Typing 0425261 gives the check digit 4, and a scanner expands the result to the full UPC-A 042100005264. The sixth digit, 1 here, tells the scanner where the four zeros go back in. Anything that starts with 2 to 9 is refused with “UPC-E numbers start with 0 or 1.”

Before it goes to print

Download the SVG for a printer or a packaging designer: it stays sharp at any size. The PNG is 1200 pixels wide, fine for a label program or a document. Leave “Show the digits under the bars” switched on for retail; when a scan fails, the cashier types those digits.

Black on white is the safe choice. Dark blue or dark green bars usually work, red bars do not, because many scanners read with red light and see red as white. Keep the empty white space on both sides of the bars, and never stretch the image in one direction only.

Questions and answers

Do I type 11 or 12 digits for a UPC-A?

Either. With 11 digits the tool works out the 12th, the check digit, and tells you which digit it added. With 12 digits it checks the last one, and if it is wrong it shows the correct digit instead of drawing a barcode.

Where do I get a UPC number?

From GS1 US, which licenses a company prefix to your business; you then number your products from it. Retailers and marketplaces such as Amazon look numbers up in the GS1 database, so a number bought from a reseller may still be listed under another company.

Can the tool shorten my UPC-A into a UPC-E?

No. You type the UPC-E itself, 7 or 8 digits starting with 0 or 1. Only some UPC-A numbers, those with the right run of zeros, have a UPC-E form at all.

Why does my scanner show 13 digits starting with 0?

A UPC-A is an EAN-13 with a leading zero, and many scanners report it that way. The barcode for 036000291452 reads back as 0036000291452 on a reader set to EAN-13: same product, same check digit.

What size should a UPC barcode be?

The standard UPC-A is about 1.47 × 1.02 inches (37 × 26 mm), and it can go down to about 80% of that. Shrink it evenly: cutting only the height to fit a label is the usual reason a code fails at the register.