--- title: "What Is a GS1 Digital Link? QR Codes on Packaging, Explained" description: "GS1 Digital Link explained: how a QR code carrying a GTIN turns a packaging barcode into a web address, what a resolver does, and why Sunrise 2027 matters." canonical: https://reroutehq.com/resources/what-is-gs1-digital-link --- # What is a GS1 Digital Link? The web address inside the new product QR codes **Who this is for:** Brands, packaging and supply-chain teams 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. ## Steps ### 1. 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. ### 2. 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. ### 3. 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. ### 4. 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. ### 5. 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. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is a GS1 Digital Link the same thing as a QR code? No. The QR code is the carrier — a picture that holds a URL. The GS1 Digital Link is the URI standard for what that URL contains: GS1 identifiers written into the path so machines can parse the GTIN back out. A Digital Link can travel in a QR code, a Data Matrix, or a plain hyperlink. ### What does the /01/ in the URL mean? It is GS1 Application Identifier 01, which means GTIN — the same AI numbering used in barcodes for decades. The digits after it are the product's GTIN, and further AI pairs can follow for batch (10), serial (21), or consumer product variant (22). ### Do I legally need this by 2027? No. Sunrise 2027 is a GS1 industry initiative, not legislation. The commercial reality is that major retailers are adopting 2D-capable point of sale, and brands that want one code on pack for both the till and the shopper are moving now, while artwork cycles allow it. ### Can an ordinary URL shortener do this? Not fully. A shortener redirects one path to one destination. A Digital Link resolver has to parse Application Identifiers out of the path, route by link type, answer linkset requests with RFC 9264 JSON under content negotiation, and publish a resolver description. Those behaviours are what GS1 conformance actually tests. ### Does the normal EAN or UPC barcode go away? Not yet. GS1 recommends dual marking through the transition: the linear barcode stays on pack next to the 2D code until point-of-sale coverage is high enough to drop it. Nothing printed today stops working. ### What is a linkset? The machine-readable list of every destination registered for a GTIN, returned as RFC 9264 JSON when a system asks for it instead of a redirect. It is how retailer systems read your Digital Links in bulk, and the quickest way to tell a conformant resolver from a URL generator. ## Related - [/tools/gs1-barcode-qr-code](/tools/gs1-barcode-qr-code) - [/tools/url-qr-code](/tools/url-qr-code) - [/tools/pdf-qr-code](/tools/pdf-qr-code) - [Get packaging ready for Sunrise 2027](/resources/gs1-digital-link-packaging-2027) - [Developer documentation](/developers) - [Pricing](/pricing)