The Short Answer
If you sell physical products, the choice between UPC and EAN almost always comes down to one thing: where the product will be scanned. UPC-A is the 12-digit retail standard for the United States and Canada. EAN-13 is the 13-digit standard used across the rest of the world — Europe, the Middle East, most of Asia, and marketplaces like Daraz.
Here's the part that surprises most sellers: they aren't really competing formats. EAN-13 is a superset of UPC-A, and modern scanners read both. So the practical question isn't "which is better" — it's "which one does the marketplace or retailer I'm selling to expect."
Rule of thumb: selling in the US or Canada → UPC-A. Selling anywhere else, or globally → EAN-13. Selling on Amazon → either works, because both are valid GTINs.
What UPC and EAN Actually Are
Both are retail product barcodes governed by GS1, the global not-for-profit that issues the numbers behind them. The difference is history and digit count.
UPC (Universal Product Code) came first, standardised in the US in the 1970s to speed up supermarket checkouts. The common form, UPC-A, encodes 12 digits. EAN (originally European Article Number, now International Article Number) was introduced a few years later to give the rest of the world a compatible system — EAN-13 encodes 13 digits.
- UPC-A — 12 digits; the North American retail standard (this is the GTIN-12)
- EAN-13 — 13 digits; the international retail standard (the GTIN-13)
- EAN-8 — 8 digits; a compact version for very small packaging where EAN-13 won't fit
- Both use a final check digit the scanner uses to catch misreads — you don't calculate it by hand
The Key Insight: an EAN-13 Contains a UPC-A
This is the detail that clears up most of the confusion. A UPC-A is simply an EAN-13 with a leading zero. Take any 12-digit UPC-A, put a 0 in front, and you have the equivalent 13-digit EAN-13 — the same product, the same check digit logic, a fully valid international code.
That's why a single number issued by GS1 works almost everywhere. If a North American retailer wants the 12-digit UPC-A, you drop the leading zero; if an international marketplace wants the 13-digit EAN-13, you keep it. You are not buying two different products — you are formatting one GTIN two ways.
Because EAN-13 is the wider format, when in doubt store your numbers as 13-digit GTINs. It's trivial to render a UPC-A from a GTIN that starts with 0, but you can't shrink an arbitrary EAN-13 into 12 digits.
Do the First Digits Show the Country of Origin? (No)
A stubborn myth says the leading digits of an EAN-13 tell you where a product was manufactured. They don't. Those digits are a GS1 prefix, and they identify the GS1 member organisation that issued the number — not the factory, and not where the goods were made.
So a company that joined GS1 in one country can sell products made anywhere in the world under that prefix. Treat the prefix as "which GS1 office assigned this number," never as a country-of-manufacture label. For sourcing or compliance questions, the barcode is not your evidence.
Which One Do You Need? By Where You Sell
Match the format to your sales channel, not to a preference:
- US / Canada brick-and-mortar retail — UPC-A (12 digits). This is what North American POS systems and buyers expect on the shelf.
- Europe, Middle East, Asia, Latin America — EAN-13 (13 digits), the default everywhere outside North America.
- Amazon — a valid GTIN is required for most new listings; both UPC and EAN qualify, unless your brand is GTIN-exempt.
- Daraz and similar marketplaces — increasingly expect a scannable EAN-13 on the product itself.
- Selling globally on one listing — use EAN-13; it scans in North America too and covers the widest set of retailers.
- Your own warehouse, POS, or price tags — you don't need a UPC or EAN at all; use Code 128 for internal SKUs.
Where the Number Comes From — and What It Costs
Whichever format you choose, a barcode generator turns a number into a scannable image — it does not register a globally unique product identity. For retail marketplaces that require a genuine GTIN, you get the number from GS1 (or an authorised reseller), then generate the barcode from it.
GS1 issues numbers through a licence, and one licence produces GTINs you can render as either UPC-A or EAN-13. For internal use — SKUs that never touch a retail till — there's no registration and no cost: you assign your own numbers and encode them, usually as Code 128.
Don't buy "cheap UPCs" that a marketplace later rejects, and don't invent a 12-digit number for an Amazon listing. Where a real GTIN is required, it must trace back to GS1. Use a generator for the image; use GS1 for the number.
Generating the Barcode Image (UPC-A or EAN-13)
Once you have the number, producing the barcode takes seconds and is free — no signup needed to try it.
- 1Open the Barcode Generator and pick UPC-A or EAN-13
- 2Enter your number — the tool validates the length and appends the correct check digit automatically
- 3Download a sharp, print-ready PNG, or bulk-generate a whole catalogue from an Excel/CSV column