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A 'European Article Number' ('EAN') is a barcoding standard which is a superset of the original 12-digit Universal Product Code (UPC) system developed in North America. The EAN-13 barcode is defined by the standards organisation GS1. It is also called a 'Japanese Article Number' ('JAN') in Japan. UPC, EAN, and JAN ''numbers'' are collectively called Global Trade Item Numbers (GTIN), though they can be expressed in different kinds of barcodes.
The 'EAN-13' barcodes are used worldwide for marking retail goods. The less commonly used 'EAN-8' barcodes are used also for marking retail goods; however, they are usually reserved for smaller items, for example confectionery. In 'EAN-13' the symbol encodes 13 numerals divided into four parts:

★ System code, the first two or three digits, usually identifying the country in which the manufacturer is registered (not necessarily where the product is actually made). When the EAN-13 barcode is a conversion of an ISBN or ISSN code, the system code will be 978 or 979 for ISBNs (Bookland), or 977 for ISSNs.

★ Manufacturer code, consisting of four or five digits depending on the length of the system or country code.

★ Product code, consisting of five digits.

★ Check digit, a single checksum digit. The check digit is computed modulo 10, where the weights in the checksum calculation alternate 1 and 3. In particular, since the weights are relatively prime to 10 the EAN system will detect all single digit errors. But since the difference of consecutive weights is even, the EAN system does not detect all adjacent transposition errors.
2-digit and 5-digit supplemental barcodes may be added for a total of 14 or 17 data digits.

Contents

Country codes

Encoding

See also

Country codes

The first three digits of the barcode of any product represents the country. Note that EAN codes beginning with 0 are rarely used, as this is just an addition to 12-digit UPC. Since most scanners and registers worldwide can read both equally, most manufacturers in North America still only use UPC.

Encoding

To encode an EAN-13 barcode, the digits are first split into 3 groups, the first digit, the first group of 6 and the last group of 6. The first group of six is encoded using a scheme whereby each digit has two possible encodings, one of which has even parity and one of which has odd parity. The first digit is encoded by selecting a pattern of choices between these two encodings. All digits in the last group of six digits are encoded using a single set of patterns which are the same patterns used for UPC.
If the first digit is zero, all digits in the first group of six are encoded using the patterns used for UPC, hence a UPC barcode is also an EAN-13 barcode with the first digit set to zero.

Structure of EAN-13

First digit	First group of 6 digits	Last group of 6 digits
0	LLLLLL	RRRRRR
1	LLGLGG	RRRRRR
2	LLGGLG	RRRRRR
3	LLGGGL	RRRRRR
4	LGLLGG	RRRRRR
5	LGGLLG	RRRRRR
6	LGGGLL	RRRRRR
7	LGLGLG	RRRRRR
8	LGLGGL	RRRRRR
9	LGGLGL	RRRRRR

Encoding of the digits

Digit	L-code	G-code	R-code
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

'Note:' Entries in the R-column are bitwise complements of the respective entries in the L-column. Entries is the G-column are the entries in the R-column reversed.

See also

★ Electronic Data Interchange

★ Global Electronic Party Information Register (GEPIR) a searchable distributed database of GS1 codes

★ GTIN

★ EAN 8, another form of EAN barcode