Reading Country Code From Barcodes

I love the tips that get passed around online that just make your life work a little easier.  This quick tip was posted to me today.

Example UPC barcode
Example UPC barcode

I’d always known that standard barcodes included country information, but wasnt’ sure how to parse it out, or where the numbers matched up to.  Well, here’s a few quick answers:

Howto Read Country of Origin Codes

Wikipedia’s List of all country GS1 codes

The short of it all is this, the first digits tell you where it’s from.  000 – 139 are US, though most unused still.  Just as a note, older products didn’t have a leading 0, such as the posted example, so assume 0 padding for the full length when calculating.

690 – 695 is China.

5 Replies to “Reading Country Code From Barcodes”

  1. This is awesome…. I have been trying to figure out if there was away to do this.

    Now I can see what food is coming from China so I know what to stay the heck away from.

  2. This is awesome…. I have been trying to figure out if there was away to do this.

    Now I can see what food is coming from China so I know what to stay the heck away from.

  3. Not quite true. The first two or three digits represent the country that issued the barcode, not the one that produced the product.

  4. Not quite true. The first two or three digits represent the country that issued the barcode, not the one that produced the product.

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