Packaging, CPG and private-label teams
How to get packaging ready for GS1 Sunrise 2027 with a Digital Link QR code
GS1 has asked every retail point-of-sale system to be able to read 2D barcodes by 31 December 2027. GS1 member organisations run pilots worldwide and several major retailers are already live.
For a brand, the practical consequence is that a QR code carrying a GTIN needs something to answer it. That service is called a resolver, and it is the part most teams have never had to buy before.
- 1
Claim the GS1 company prefix you license
The prefix is globally unique in our system, so once claimed nobody else can register GTINs underneath it. Claims are self-asserted today — we do not yet verify them against GS1's own API, and we would rather say so than imply we do.
- 2
Register a GTIN and its link types
One GTIN carries many destinations keyed by GS1 vocabulary link types: product information, allergens, instructions, a recall notice, a reorder page. Add as many as the product needs.
- 3
Test all four request shapes before artwork
A plain scan should redirect to your default link. A link type request should redirect to that specific one. A linkset request should return every destination as JSON without redirecting. And the resolver description should be published for GS1 tooling to discover. Check all four while changing them is still free.
- 4
Print the dual barcode
GS1 recommends carrying both codes through the transition: your existing linear EAN or UPC stays on pack alongside the 2D code until point-of-sale coverage is high enough to drop it. Nothing you print today stops working.
- 5
Update destinations without touching the pack
The whole reason this is worth doing. When the recipe changes, the campaign ends or a recall notice is needed, you change the link — not the fifty thousand cartons already in the supply chain.
What this will not do
- GTIN is the only primary key supported. We do not resolve GLN, SSCC or GMN.
- Digital Product Passport is not implemented. If DPP is your requirement today, we are not the right vendor yet.
- Serving the resolver from your own domain rather than ours requires a custom domain, which sits on a higher plan than the resolver itself. Check the pricing page before you assume.
- Sunrise 2027 is an industry initiative, not a law. The pressure is commercial rather than statutory.
Tools used in this guide
Questions
What actually is a resolver?
How do I tell a real resolver from a GS1-formatted URL?
Does my existing barcode stop working?
Can I try it before committing packaging artwork?
Other guides
- How to put a QR code on a menu you can update without reprintingOne code on the table tent that opens lunch at eleven and dinner at five, without a second print run.
- How to A/B test a printed QR campaign and measure real conversionsSplit traffic from a single print run between two destinations, and match the sale back to the scan that caused it.
- How to send iPhone and Android users to different app stores from one QR codeOne square on the poster that opens the right store for whoever scanned it, decided at the moment of the scan.
- What is a GS1 Digital Link? The web address inside the new product QR codesThe definitional companion to the packaging guide: what the standard actually is, how a scan resolves, and what a resolver does.
- How to password-protect, expire, or scan-limit a QR codeFor codes on things that stop being valid: a door ticket, a limited run, a document that should not outlive its meeting.
- How to choose between a static and a dynamic QR codeThe difference is not quality or scanning speed — it is whether the destination lives in the ink or behind it. That decides everything else.
- How to make a digital business card you can update after printingOne code on the card that opens your details as they are today, not as they were at the print shop.
- How to put a QR code on a yard sign that outlives the listingThe sign is the durable object, not the listing. Give each sign a code you repoint as properties come and go.
- How to run QR codes across an event — badges, booths and sessionsCodes for the whole run of an event: the save-the-date, the badge back, the booth banner, and the swap to recordings after everyone goes home.
- Leaving Bitly: what moves, and what stays deadThe destinations come with you. The printed bit.ly square does not. Import creates new addresses; it cannot take over the old ones.
- Running Bitly and reRoute together until the print run turns overKeep Bitly live until the print turns over. New rrte.link on the next run. Drain the codes people actually scan.
- How big to print a QR codeSize follows scan distance, with a 2 cm floor for close range. Quiet zone and contrast matter as much as the millimetres.