EAN-13 (European Article Number) is the standard retail barcode used worldwide for product identification. It encodes 13 digits, with the first 2-3 representing the country code, followed by manufacturer code, product code, and checksum. Over 1 billion products use this system daily.

Key Features

Character Set: 13 numeric digits (0-9)
Size: Fixed length (37.29mm wide at 100% magnification)
Check Digit: Mandatory modulo 10 checksum
Applications: Retail products, books (ISBN), journals (ISSN)

Technical Specifications

EAN-13 uses UPC-A as its basis with an additional country prefix digit. The barcode is divided into left/right halves with different encoding patterns (parity). Quiet zones of 11X (left) and 7X (right) are required. The human-readable number appears below the bars with the first digit encoded in the left guard bars.