What are the country codes?

Lots of people have requested the codes. Here is a partial list. Remember, it indicates the country that issued the code, NOT THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OF THE PRODUCT. The abbreviation "MO" stands for Member Organization. The meaning of the prefixes ""020-029", "040-049" and "200-299" are set by the GS1 administration in a given country. GS1-US has defined these prefixes as for internal use in, for example, warehouses. The authoritative list ishere.

Prefix	GS1 Country
000 - 019	GS1 United States
020 - 029	Restricted distribution (MO defined, usually for internal use)
030 - 039	GS1 United States
040 - 049	Restricted distribution (MO defined, usually for internal use)
050 - 059	Coupons
060 - 139	GS1 United States
200 - 299	Restricted distribution (MO defined, usually for internal use)
300 - 379	GS1 France
380	GS1 Bulgaria
383	GS1 Slovenia
385	GS1 Croatia
387	GS1 BIH (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
400 - 440	GS1 Germany
450 - 459 & 490 - 499	GS1 Japan
460 - 469	GS1 Russia
470	GS1 Kurdistan
471	GS1 Taiwan
474	GS1 Estonia
475	GS1 Latvia
476	GS1 Azerbaijan
477	GS1 Lithuania
478	GS1 Uzbekistan
479	GS1 Sri Lanka
480	GS1 Philippines
481	GS1 Belarus
482	GS1 Ukraine
484	GS1 Moldova
485	GS1 Armenia
486	GS1 Georgia
487	GS1 Kazakhstan
489	GS1 Hong Kong
500 - 509	GS1 UK
520	GS1 Greece
528	GS1 Lebanon
529	GS1 Cyprus
530	GS1 Albania
531	GS1 MAC (FYR Macedonia)
535	GS1 Malta
539	GS1 Ireland
540 - 549	GS1 Belgium & Luxembourg
560	GS1 Portugal
569	GS1 Iceland
570 - 579	GS1 Denmark
590	GS1 Poland
594	GS1 Romania
599	GS1 Hungary
600 - 601	GS1 South Africa
603	GS1 Ghana
608	GS1 Bahrain
609	GS1 Mauritius
611	GS1 Morocco
613	GS1 Algeria
616	GS1 Kenya
618	GS1 Ivory Coast
619	GS1 Tunisia
621	GS1 Syria
622	GS1 Egypt
624	GS1 Libya
625	GS1 Jordan
626	GS1 Iran
627	GS1 Kuwait
628	GS1 Saudi Arabia
629	GS1 Emirates
640 - 649	GS1 Finland
690 - 695	GS1 China
700 - 709	GS1 Norway
729	GS1 Israel
730 - 739	GS1 Sweden
740	GS1 Guatemala
741	GS1 El Salvador
742	GS1 Honduras
743	GS1 Nicaragua
744	GS1 Costa Rica
745	GS1 Panama
746	GS1 Dominican Republic
750	GS1 Mexico
754 - 755	GS1 Canada
759	GS1 Venezuela
760 - 769	GS1 Switzerland
770	GS1 Colombia
773	GS1 Uruguay
775	GS1 Peru
777	GS1 Bolivia
779	GS1 Argentina
780	GS1 Chile
784	GS1 Paraguay
786	GS1 Ecuador
789 - 790	GS1 Brazil
800 - 839	GS1 Italy
840 - 849	GS1 Spain
850	GS1 Cuba
858	GS1 Slovakia
859	GS1 Czech
860	GS1 YU (Serbia & Montenegro)
865	GS1 Mongolia
867	GS1 North Korea
868 - 869	GS1 Turkey
870 - 879	GS1 Netherlands
880	GS1 South Korea
884	GS1 Cambodia
885	GS1 Thailand
888	GS1 Singapore
890	GS1 India
893	GS1 Vietnam
899	GS1 Indonesia
900 - 919	GS1 Austria
930 - 939	GS1 Australia
940 - 949	GS1 New Zealand
950	GS1 Global Office
955	GS1 Malaysia
958	GS1 Macau
977	Serial publications (ISSN)
978 - 979	Bookland (ISBN)
980	Refund receipts
981 - 982	Common Currency Coupons
990 - 999	Coupons

More information about EAN-13 is available here.

EAN-8 has a left-hand guard pattern, four odd parity digits, a center guard pattern, four even parity digits, and a right-hand guard pattern. An EAN-8 bar code has two flag digits, five data digits, and one check digit. There is additional information about EAN-8 here.

Information about Bookland EAN and ISBN numbering of books can be found at BarCode 1's Bookland EAN and ISBN Page.

There is a good explanation of Bookland EAN bar code symbols used by the publishing industry at the Infinity Graphics site. There is also a very good explanation about Bookland EAN Add-On Code, used for storing the price of a book or magazine.

If you need to compute the check digit for UPC-A (UCC-12) in Excel, the following will work:

Put the number you want to determine the check digit for in cell A1.

Put the following formula in cell B1:

=10-MOD(MID($A1,2,1)+MID($A1,4,1)+MID($A1,6,1)+MID($A1,8,1)+MID($A1,10,1)+(MID($A1,1,1)+MID($A1,3,1)+MID($A1,5,1)+MID($A1,7,1)+MID($A1,9,1)+MID($A1,11,1))*3,10)

Put the following formula in cell C1:

=if($B1=10,0,$B1)

The value that appears in cell C1 is the check digit. If you want to add the check digit to the UPC to produce the full UPC-12 number, put the following formula in D1:

=CONCATENATE(A1,C1)

For EAN-13 (UCC-13) the formula in cell B1 should to changed to:

=10-MOD(MID($A1,1,1)+MID($A1,3,1)+MID($A1,5,1)+MID($A1,7,1)+MID($A1,9,1)+MID($A1,11,1)+(MID($A1,2,1)+MID($A1,4,1)+MID($A1,6,1)+MID($A1,8,1)+MID($A1,10,1)+MID($A1,12,1))*3,10)

For EAN-14/UCC-14 the formula in cell B1 should be changed to:

=10-MOD(MID($A1,2,1)+MID($A1,4,1)+MID($A1,6,1)+MID($A1,8,1)+MID($A1,10,1)+MID($A1,12,1)+(MID($A1,1,1)+MID($A1,3,1)+MID($A1,5,1)+MID($A1,7,1)+MID($A1,9,1)+MID($A1,11,1)+MID($A1,13,1))*3,10)

For EAN/UCC-8 the forumula in cell B1 should be changed to:

=10-MOD(MID($A1,2,1)+MID($A1,4,1)+MID($A1,6,1)+(MID($A1,1,1)+MID($A1,3,1)+MID($A1,5,1)+MID($A1,7,1))*3,10)

Other UPC And EAN Resources

George J. Laurer is the developer of UPC in 1973 and EAN later. There is a history at his site.

GS1-US (formally called Uniform Code Council) has a home page that provides a catalog of information they sell and an electronic version of their newsletter.

There is also a step-by-step guide about how to join and get a manufacturer's code to produce barcodes here.

GS1 (formarly called EAN International) is is the organization that manages the EAN system worldwide, currently there are national organizations in 92 countries on the 5 continents. (can be slow to access from North America). They also have a complete list of the addresses and phone numbers of the local EAN organizations by country. This list also has links to on-line sites of EAN organizations in some countries. There is much more very good information at the EAN site. The site is a must visit for information about EAN.

There is another site which provides product descriptions. It's called the Internet UPC Database, an on-line database for Universal Product Codes (UPC).

There is a new resource for searching EAN barcode numbers at www.ean-search.org. You can search for EAN codes or browse through the database of over 500.000 EANs.

There is a good explanation for children about How UPC Bar Codes Work from Howstuffworks.com

A very good explanation about UPC/EAN-128 Coupon Extended Code for cents-off coupons can be found at the Infinity Graphics site.

There is also more information about coupon codes here and there is still more about coupon codes here.