European Article Numbering-Uniform Code Council

Uniform Code Council (UCC) is the Numbering Organisation in the USA to administer and manage the EAN·UCC system standards in the USA and Canada.

GTIN is the EAN-UCC Global Trade Item Numbering system. GTIN numbers are 14 digits long. GTIN can be constructed using four numbering structures, depending upon the exact application and the bar code symbology to be used. The Numbering Structures that can be found in the 14-digit Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) are : EAN.UCC-14, (0+EAN.UCC-13), (00+UCC-12) and (000000+EAN.UCC-8).

EAN.UCC-13 is also called UPC-A. The EAN.UCC-8 is a 8-digit code used usually for very small articles, such as bubblegum, where fitting a larger code would be problematic.

The numbering structure is composed of:

• Zeros, right justified, to complete 14 digits.
• Country and Company prefix. Indicate the manufacturer are assigned by EAN.UCC
• Item (product or service) reference number.This part of the numbering structure is allocated by the user company. Each different trade item is allocated a different number and, for ease of administration, it is recommended that companies do this sequentially (001, 002, 003, etc.).
• And check digit, the last one.

All books and serial publications sold internationally (including those in U.S. stores) have GTIN (EAN-UCC-13) codes. The book codes are constructed by prefixing the ISBN number with 978 and 979 and recalculating the trailing checksum digit, because the ISBN and EAN.UCC codes use different algorithms for this.

EAN·UCC has a standard check-digit algorithm for all GTINs.

See also

• Global EAN Party Information Register a searchable distributed database of EAN codes
• EDI.

• EAN-UCC (http://www.ean-ucc.org).
• GTIN (http://www.ean-int.org/products).