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Fact check: Bar code's first digits do not reveal product's country of origin

McKenzie Sadeghi   | Paste BN

The claim: Bar code prefixes reveal where a product was made

As false claims about where products are made have increased amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an old rumor has resurfaced on Facebook suggesting that a barcode can reveal the country of origin of an item. 

One claim went viral after it was posted in 2015 by Facebook user Dave Aston; it has now been shared over 746,000 times. "This is our right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the public, therefore we have to RESCUE ourselves."

"BUY USA & CANADIAN MADE by watching for '0' at the beginning of the number," the post reads, claiming that if a barcode starts with zero then it was made in the U.S. or Canada.

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That claim continues to find an audience on social media, even five years later.

In June, a similar post appeared from user David Shannon who wrote, "A friend of mine sent an interesting email recently. He said a lot of people are interested in knowing where products are made before they decide if they wanted to buy or not," along with a photo of a barcode.

The post then goes on to claim that the first three digits on a barcode can tell a customer where the product was made and lists different countries with a set of numbers next to them, the same as the 2015 post.

Paste BN reached out to Aston and Shannon for comment.

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Global Trade Item Number

The set of numbers below a black-and-white barcode is called a Global Trade Item Number, which identifies the manufacturer of a product. 

"The GTIN is a globally unique 14-digit number used to identify trade items, products or services. GTIN is also an umbrella term that refers to the entire family of UCC.EAN data structure," GTIN's site explains, referring to Uniform Code Council and European Article Numbers. 

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GS1, a nonprofit organization that provides manufacturers with a set of numbers for barcodes, states on its site that a GTIN "can be used by a company to uniquely identify all of its trade items."

GS1's site further states that Universal Product Codes and European Article Numbers are "printed on virtually every product in the world" and are the "longest-established and widely-used of all GS1 barcodes." 

Under frequently asked questions, the company states that the prefix, or first two to three digits of a barcode, do not show the product's country of origin. 

"An EAN-13 barcode number always starts with the GS1 Prefix of the GS1 Member Organisation that allocated the barcode number," the site reads. "The GS1 Prefix does not indicate that the product was manufactured in a specific country or by a specific manufacturer; it may have been produced anywhere in the world."

International Barcodes also explains on its site that the claim that a barcode can show where an item is made is an old myth.

"Many people mistakenly believe that the first few digits of the barcode numbers show the country of origin of the product. However, the barcode number says NOTHING accurate about the country of origin of the product," the site reads. 

Barcodes can show other information

While the set of numbers under a barcode don't show where a product is made, the numbers represent other information. 

According to Biz Fluent, the first digit of a 12-digit barcode identifies the numbering system, and the next five digits identify the manufacturer. The last five digits identify the product.

The site also notes that while the numbers don't identify the product's country of origin, it can show which country issued the barcode number. 

Nationwide Barcode, a company similar to GS1 that provides UPC and EAN barcodes to businesses, states that the digits under a barcode allow retailers to track sales of a product and manage inventory.

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Our ruling: False

The prefix of the set of digits under a barcode does not show what country a product was made in, therefore we rate this claim FALSE, based on our research. While the prefix can show the country of the manufacturer of a product, it is false to say that the company manufactured the product in that country.

Our fact-check sources: 

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Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

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