Brands, packaging and supply-chain teams
What is a GS1 Digital Link? The web address inside the new product QR codes
A GS1 Digital Link is not a kind of QR code. It is a standardised way of writing GS1 identifiers — the GTIN on every retail product, above all — as a web address, so that one barcode can serve a till, a shopper's phone and a retailer's system at once.
The QR code is just the carrier. What matters is the URL inside it, and the service that answers when something scans it. This page explains both. If you already know what it is and want to get packaging ready, the step-by-step guide is the better read.
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The definition: a barcode written as a web address
A GS1 Digital Link URI puts GS1 identifiers into a URL path using numeric Application Identifiers: https://example.com/01/09506000134352 says "GTIN 09506000134352", because AI 01 means GTIN. Qualifiers can follow — batch (10), serial number (21), consumer product variant (22) — so one URI can identify a product, a production lot, or a single unit. It is the same data a linear barcode carries, made readable by anything that understands a URL.
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How a scan actually resolves
The phone opens the URL like any other. The service at that domain — the resolver — parses the GTIN out of the path, looks up the destinations registered for it, and redirects. A plain scan goes to the default destination; a request naming a link type (product information, allergen data, a recall notice) goes to that specific one. The same GTIN can answer a shopper with a product page and a regulator with a compliance document, without changing anything printed.
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The machine-readable side: linksets
Resolvers do more than redirect. A conformant resolver, asked for linkset content, returns every registered destination for a GTIN as structured RFC 9264 JSON instead of redirecting — which is how retailer and marketplace systems consume Digital Links in bulk. This is the practical test of a real resolver: a tool that merely generates GS1-shaped URLs cannot answer it.
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Where Sunrise 2027 fits
GS1's Sunrise 2027 initiative asks retail point-of-sale systems worldwide to read 2D barcodes by the end of 2027. That is what moves Digital Link from an interesting standard to a packaging decision: brands printing QR codes on pack want them to carry the GTIN so one code serves both the till and the shopper. It is an industry initiative rather than a law — the pressure comes from retailers, not statute — but the retailers involved are large.
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How reRoute fits, and what to prepare
reRoute operates a conformant resolver: you register a GTIN under your company prefix, attach destinations keyed by GS1 link types, and the resolver answers plain scans, link-type requests and linkset requests, and publishes a resolver description for GS1 tooling. To prepare, a brand needs a GS1 company prefix (licensed from your local GS1 member organisation — nobody else can issue one), a resolver, registered link types per GTIN, and an artwork plan that keeps the linear barcode on pack alongside the QR code through the transition.
What this will not do
- GTIN is the only primary key we resolve. We do not resolve GLN, SSCC or GMN identifiers.
- A GS1 company prefix comes from a GS1 member organisation, not from us. reRoute cannot license prefixes or assign official GTINs.
- Digital Product Passport is not implemented. If DPP is your requirement today, we are not the right vendor yet.
- This page defines the standard. For the end-to-end setup — registering a GTIN, testing the four request shapes, dual barcoding — use the packaging guide linked below.
Tools used in this guide
Questions
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.
- How to get packaging ready for GS1 Sunrise 2027 with a Digital Link QR codeRegister a GTIN, point it at the destinations retailers and shoppers each need, and test it before artwork goes to print.
- 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.