The retail barcode has not changed in any fundamental way since the first Universal Product Code (UPC) was scanned at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio on June 26, 1974. For more than fifty years, the black-and-white stripes printed on the back of almost every consumer product have done exactly the same job: encode a 13-digit product identifier, route a point-of-sale terminal to a price lookup, and stop there. GS1 Sunrise 2027 is the formal name for the industry-wide initiative that brings that era to a close. By December 31, 2027, all compliant retail point-of-sale systems worldwide are expected to be capable of reading 2D barcodes — specifically QR codes structured to the GS1 Digital Link standard. For brand owners, importers, and anyone responsible for packaging or supply chain data, the operational implications are significant and the timeline is already shorter than most teams realize.
In this guide, you will learn:
GS1 Sunrise 2027 is the milestone date by which all major retail point-of-sale (POS) systems worldwide are expected to be capable of scanning 2D barcodes. It is a commitment made by the retail industry, coordinated by GS1 — the nonprofit global standards organization responsible for barcodes, product identifiers, and supply chain data standards — and confirmed by major retailers and national GS1 member organizations across more than 115 countries.
The word "Sunrise" is intentional. December 31, 2027 is not a shutdown date for the 1D barcode. It is the date by which 2D scanning capability must be a baseline feature of all compliant POS systems. After that date, retailers are no longer obligated to support products labeled with only a 1D barcode, and brands producing new packaging from that point forward should expect to carry a GS1 Digital Link QR code as the primary machine-readable identifier.
The initiative is not hypothetical. Major retail chains — including Walmart, Carrefour, and Tesco — have made public commitments to 2D-readiness at checkout. In the United States, the Food Industry Association (FMI) and the Consumer Brands Association (CBA) have both formally endorsed the transition. In Europe, the urgency is amplified by regulatory requirements for Digital Product Passports (DPPs) under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which align directly with the same 2027 deadline.
The limitations of the 1D barcode are structural, not incidental. A standard EAN-13 barcode encodes exactly 13 digits. Those 13 digits carry the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) — the product identifier — and nothing else. That was the right design in 1974, when the problem being solved was checkout speed. In 2026, the information demands placed on product packaging have grown far beyond what 13 digits can satisfy.
Retailers, regulators, and consumers now require data that did not exist as a concept when the UPC was designed: country of origin, batch and lot number, expiry date, sustainability credentials, allergen information, recycling instructions, and — for regulated product categories — a full Digital Product Passport containing provenance, material composition, and end-of-life guidance. A 1D barcode carries none of this. It points to a record in a retailer's database and stops at the store's back-office system. The information never travels any further.
Three specific constraints make the 1D barcode unfit for the current environment:
Consider a concrete example of what that limitation costs. A batch of infant formula is recalled because of contamination at a specific manufacturing facility. With a 1D barcode, identifying affected stock requires manually cross-referencing POS transaction records against batch records held in separate internal systems — a process that takes days and depends on data linkages that may not be reliable. With a 2D barcode carrying a serialized GS1 Digital Link URL, the batch number and expiry date are encoded in the barcode itself. A retailer's system can identify every affected unit instantly, without reference to any external database.
GS1 Digital Link is the technical standard that makes it possible for a QR code to function simultaneously as a retail checkout identifier, a consumer information link, and a supply chain data carrier. The GS1 Digital Link standard was first published by GS1 in 2018 and revised through subsequent versions, including version 1.2 in January 2021; it was subsequently adopted as the international standard ISO/IEC 18975 in 2024. It is the technical foundation of the entire Sunrise 2027 initiative.
The key insight behind GS1 Digital Link is that a web address — a Uniform Resource Locator — can carry all the same product identifier information that previously lived in a 1D barcode, but encode it in a structured format that machines, supply chain systems, and human-readable applications can all interpret consistently. GS1 Application Identifiers (AIs) — the two-, three-, and four-digit numeric codes that GS1 has defined for every type of product data — become path segments and query parameters within a standard URL.
Consider the following example of a real GS1 Digital Link URL:
https://resolve.trackvision.ai/01/05012345678900/10/BATCH2024A?17=261231Breaking this down component by component:
https://resolve.trackvision.ai — The resolver domain. This is the GS1 Digital Link resolver — the service that interprets the incoming URL and routes the request to the appropriate digital destination based on who is scanning and what they need./01/ — The GS1 Application Identifier (AI) for a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN). The 01 signals to any compliant system that the following string is a GTIN.05012345678900 — The 14-digit GTIN identifying the specific product. This is the same product identifier that sits inside every 1D barcode in use today./10/ — The AI for batch or lot number. Batch/lot is a key qualifier for the GTIN — it refines which specific production run is being identified — and so it appears as a path segment rather than a query parameter.BATCH2024A — The specific batch identifier assigned to this production run.?17=261231 — The expiry date, encoded as a query parameter. AI 17 designates expiry date; 261231 encodes December 31, 2026 in YYMMDD format.The placement of data elements in the path versus the query string is not arbitrary. The GS1 Digital Link standard draws a precise distinction between two types of Application Identifiers. Key qualifiers — identifiers that further specify which item is being identified, such as batch/lot (AI 10) and serial number (AI 21) — are encoded as path segments immediately after the primary key. Data attributes — identifiers that describe properties of the item, such as expiry date (AI 17), net weight (AI 3103), or country of origin (AI 422) — are always encoded as query parameters. This separation allows resolvers to make routing decisions based on identity information in the path, while treating descriptive data in the query string as supplementary payload that downstream systems can parse according to their own requirements.
This single URL does what a 1D barcode cannot. It identifies not just the product type, but the specific batch and the expiry date, and it does so in a web-native format that a retail POS terminal, a consumer smartphone, and a supply chain compliance system can all read — each receiving the response that is appropriate to their context. That context-sensitive routing is the job of the GS1 Digital Link resolver.
The resolver is the infrastructure layer that sits behind the domain in a Digital Link URL. When any device scans a GS1 Digital Link QR code, the request hits the resolver. The resolver reads the Application Identifiers in the URL path, identifies the product and any qualifiers, and then routes the request to the correct digital destination based on the context of the scan.
A retail POS terminal scanning the same code that a consumer scans with their phone receives a different response. The POS terminal receives structured data confirming the GTIN for pricing and inventory. The consumer's phone is redirected to a product information page, a recycling guide, or a Digital Product Passport. The resolver makes that determination automatically, using "link types" — defined response categories that the brand configures when setting up their resolver records.
Think of the resolver as a traffic controller. Every incoming scan arrives at the same URL, but the resolver reads the context of the request and directs it to the correct destination. The brand controls what those destinations are.
The following table summarizes the key milestones in the Sunrise 2027 transition:
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2018 | GS1 Digital Link standard first published by GS1 |
| 2023 | Sunrise 2027 industry transition program formally launched by GS1 and retail industry partners |
| 2024 | ISO/IEC 18975 published as the international standard for GS1 Digital Link; major US and European retailer commitments to 2D-readiness at checkout publicly announced |
| 18 February 2027 | EU battery Digital Product Passport requirement effective under the EU Battery Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 |
| December 31, 2027 | GS1 Sunrise 2027 date: all compliant POS systems must be capable of reading 2D barcodes |
| Post-2027 | Brands may ship products with 2D barcodes as the sole machine-readable identifier on POS-facing packaging surfaces |
It is worth being precise about what the December 31, 2027 date requires and does not require. Retailers commit on that date to being capable of scanning 2D barcodes. No mandate exists requiring that all products on shelves carry a 2D barcode from that date. The practical reality, however, is that most brand owners are targeting 2025–2026 for their own transitions, because packaging artwork cycles and supply chain lead times mean that a switch cannot happen by December 31, 2027 without preparation that should have begun two years earlier.
For brand owners with complex packaging portfolios — multiple product lines, co-manufacturers, contract packaging arrangements, multiple retail markets — the transition typically requires 18 to 24 months from the start of planning to full rollout. If that process has not yet started, the end-of-2027 deadline is not comfortable.
There is also a regulatory dimension that adds urgency for brands selling into Europe. The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), officially Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, requires Digital Product Passports for specified product categories. Batteries are the first category, with the DPP requirement taking effect on 18 February 2027 under Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1542. Textiles, electronics, and other product categories follow under subsequent delegated acts expected through 2026 and 2027. For those product categories, Sunrise 2027 and DPP compliance converge on the same deadline: a 2D barcode is required not only because retailers expect it, but because the applicable regulation mandates it.
The Sunrise 2027 transition touches every stage of packaging, labeling, and supply chain data operations. The following steps represent the core work stream for any brand owner or importer working toward compliance.
1. Audit your current packaging artwork and barcode specifications. Identify every product in your portfolio that currently carries a 1D barcode intended for retail POS scanning. Document the GTIN for each, and establish whether you are currently managing any additional identifiers — batch/lot numbers, serial numbers, expiry dates — in your internal systems. Those identifiers will need to be reflected in your GS1 Digital Link URLs.
2. Verify your GS1 Company Prefix and GTIN assignments. A GS1 Digital Link URL is only valid if it is built on a properly licensed GTIN issued through your national GS1 member organization. If your GTIN portfolio is current and correctly licensed, you are starting from a solid foundation. If there are gaps, legacy GTINs, or products without formal GTIN assignments, address those first before designing any Digital Link infrastructure.
3. Establish a GS1 Digital Link resolver. The resolver is the infrastructure layer that routes every scan of your QR codes to the correct destination. Every scan — whether from a retail POS terminal, a consumer smartphone, or a supply chain compliance system — hits the resolver first. You can build your own resolver, which is technically complex and requires ongoing maintenance, or you can use a hosted resolver service. The resolver must support multiple link types: at minimum, a default response for checkout systems (returning structured GTIN data) and a consumer-facing response routing to product information.
4. Generate GS1 Digital Link QR codes for your products. Once the resolver is operational, you can generate QR codes that encode your Digital Link URLs. These codes must meet GS1 print quality specifications to scan reliably in retail environments — a code that passes visual inspection can fail at a fast-moving checkout scanner if the print density is below specification. Do not generate them with a generic QR code tool. If your product category requires serialization at the individual unit level — which applies to batteries, pharmaceuticals, and certain regulated categories under ESPR — you will need a system capable of generating and tracking serial numbers at manufacturing scale.
5. Update your packaging artwork. The GS1 Digital Link QR code must be incorporated into your packaging design. GS1 specifies minimum size requirements and quiet zone dimensions for reliable scanning. For most brands, the packaging artwork update is the longest lead-time item in the transition: design agency work, brand approvals, printing specification updates, and — for retail-listed products — retailer artwork approval processes can each add weeks to the timeline.
6. Test against retail POS environments before shipment. A QR code that reads correctly on a desktop scanner does not guarantee reliable performance at a high-speed retail checkout. GS1 member organizations provide barcode verification services, and several major retailers operate their own pre-shipment testing programs. Test early and against the specific scanning equipment used by your key retail accounts.
The companies that encounter the most difficulty with this transition tend to share the same failure patterns.
Treating the transition as a packaging project rather than a data project. The QR code is the visible output, but the work that determines whether it functions correctly is the data infrastructure behind it: the resolver, the product data model, and — for regulated categories — the Digital Product Passport connected to the resolver. Brands that hand the project entirely to a design agency produce QR codes that scan without resolving to anything useful, because no one built the resolver or the digital destinations behind it.
Underestimating the complexity of serialization. A GTIN identifies a product type. A serial number identifies a specific physical unit. A batch number identifies a production run. Many brands currently manage GTINs but have no system for generating, assigning, or tracking serial numbers at scale. For product categories that require unit-level serialization — batteries under ESPR, pharmaceuticals under the EU Falsified Medicines Directive (2011/62/EU), luxury goods, and textiles in some markets — this is not an optional capability. It must be built into manufacturing and labeling operations well before 2027.
Starting too late. The 18- to 24-month lead time for a full packaging transition is not an estimate padded for safety; it reflects the genuine process time for most mid-market brand owners. Beginning the transition in mid-2026 for a December 2027 deadline is operationally very difficult. For brands with co-manufacturing relationships or contract packaging arrangements, coordinating artwork changes, resolver setup, and QR code generation across multiple production sites makes it effectively impossible without substantial advance preparation.
GS1 Sunrise 2027 requires that retailers be capable of scanning 2D barcodes at point of sale by December 31, 2027. Brands are not subject to a statutory mandate requiring them to switch by that date under GS1 rules alone. However, the practical expectation is that new packaging produced in 2025 and 2026 should carry a GS1 Digital Link QR code. Brands in regulated product categories — batteries being the most immediate, with the EU DPP requirement effective 18 February 2027 — do face statutory compliance deadlines that align directly with the Sunrise date.
A standard QR code linking to a website will not be accepted by retail POS systems expecting a structured GTIN. The QR code must encode a properly structured GS1 Digital Link URI containing a licensed GTIN and following the Application Identifier path structure defined in ISO/IEC 18975. Retail scanners are programmed to parse that specific structure — a generic QR code pointing to a brand homepage will not pass checkout validation in any GS1-compliant POS system.
No. GS1 guidance permits both a 1D barcode and a GS1 Digital Link QR code to coexist on the same packaging during the transition period. After 2027, brands may choose to carry only the 2D code on the retail-facing surface, since all compliant POS systems will be able to read it. Whether to maintain both codes depends on each brand's specific retail account mix and the pace at which their key retailers complete the upgrade of their scanning infrastructure.
Products labeled with only a 1D barcode will not immediately fail at retail. Compliant POS systems after December 31, 2027 are required to be capable of scanning 2D barcodes, but they will continue to scan 1D barcodes as well. The risk is not an immediate scan failure — it is that brands producing new packaging without a 2D barcode are out of alignment with the direction of the industry, and for regulated product categories, they are non-compliant with applicable law. Packaging that goes to print in 2025 or 2026 without a GS1 Digital Link QR code will still be in retail channels well after 2027.
A standard QR code is a machine-readable encoding of any arbitrary string of text. It carries no defined structure and no inherent meaning to a supply chain system. A GS1 Digital Link QR code encodes a specific type of URL, structured according to ISO/IEC 18975, using GS1 Application Identifiers to embed product identifiers — GTIN, batch, serial number, expiry date — in defined path and query parameter positions. The structured format is what allows retail POS terminals, supply chain compliance systems, and regulatory systems to parse the data consistently and automatically, without any prior knowledge of the specific brand or product.
Batteries are the first regulated product category under ESPR. Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 — the EU Battery Regulation — requires a Digital Product Passport for industrial batteries, EV batteries, and LMT batteries from 18 February 2027. Textiles are the next major category, with delegated acts expected in late 2026 or early 2027. Electronics, furniture, and several other priority categories follow in subsequent years under the ESPR Working Plan for 2025–2030.
TrackVision AI provides the complete technical infrastructure that brand owners and importers need to execute the Sunrise 2027 transition. The platform includes a hosted GS1 Digital Link resolver that handles all routing logic automatically: when a retail POS terminal scans a product at checkout, it receives the structured GTIN response it expects; when a consumer scans the same code with a smartphone, they are directed to a product information page or Digital Product Passport. That routing is configured once per product and managed centrally, without requiring manual intervention for each scan context.
For brands that also face EU DPP requirements, TrackVision's DPP Page Builder connects directly to the resolver. Product passport pages are built using a template-based interface and automatically hosted and linked to the corresponding GS1 Digital Link QR codes. QR code generation is available as a one-click export or in batch for large product portfolios, with all codes pre-validated to GS1 Digital Link specification and print quality standards. A typical implementation — from initial setup to live QR codes connected to DPP pages — takes four to eight weeks.
If you are working through your Sunrise 2027 readiness and want to understand the specific steps for your product portfolio, get in touch with our team. We are glad to walk through resolver setup, QR code generation, and DPP requirements with you.