QR codes on packaging: what GS1 Digital Link and Sunrise 2027 mean for agencies

The humble barcode is about to change for the first time in fifty years, and it is moving onto territory agencies care about. The black-and-white stripes that have scanned at tills since 1974 are slowly being replaced by a QR code, and that QR code can do something the stripes never could: hold a web link. For brands, that means a single symbol on a pack can both ring up at the checkout and open a page on a shopper's phone. For the agencies that design that packaging and run the campaigns behind it, this is a shift worth understanding now, before a client asks about it.

The change has a name, a date, and a great deal of confusion attached to it. This guide cuts through that. It explains what the move to 2D barcodes actually involves, what GS1 Digital Link is, and the single most important distinction in the whole topic: a packaging QR that scans at the till is not the same thing as the dynamic campaign QR you already use. Get that distinction right and you can advise a client confidently. Get it wrong and you will promise something a marketing QR cannot deliver.

What "Sunrise 2027" actually is, and what it is not

The initiative driving all of this is run by GS1, the global standards body that has maintained the barcode and the GTIN (the product number inside it) since the beginning. GS1's stated goal is for retail point-of-sale scanning to be "globally capable of reading and processing the GTIN from both existing linear and 2D barcodes by the end of 2027". GS1 US brands this "Sunrise 2027"; GS1's global documents call it "Ambition 2027". They are the same thing.

The word that matters most there is ambition. This is a voluntary industry transition, not a law and not a regulatory deadline. GS1 describes it as a "smooth, voluntary transition from linear barcodes", and it rolls out on different timelines in different countries depending on how quickly retailers upgrade their scanners. No product becomes illegal in 2027. No brand is mandated to carry a QR code. Anyone telling your client that "barcodes will be banned" or that "every product must have a QR by 2027" is wrong, and it is worth correcting that calmly before it drives a panicked packaging decision.

There is a second rule that kills another common misconception. GS1 is explicit that until around 90% of point-of-sale systems can read 2D barcodes and capture the GTIN, any product carrying a retail 2D barcode "will need to be accompanied by a POS linear barcode". In plain terms: during the transition, packs carry both codes. The old stripes do not vanish on a fixed date. They sit alongside the new QR until enough tills can cope without them.

GS1 Digital Link: one code, two jobs

The technology that makes a single pack code work at both the till and on a phone is a GS1 standard called GS1 Digital Link. It is a way of expressing GS1 identifiers, the GTIN and optional extras like batch, expiry and serial number, as a structured web address.

The structure is the clever part. A GS1 Digital Link URL follows a fixed path convention: https://example.com/01/09312345678907, where /01/ is the GS1 Application Identifier that flags "the next number is a GTIN". Optional qualifiers append as further segments, so a code can also carry a batch and a use-by date in the same string, for example .../01/09312345678907/10/LOT2611A/17/261130.

Because the GTIN sits in a known, standardised position inside that web address, two completely different devices can each take what they need from one symbol. A 2D-capable till scanner extracts the GTIN and rings the product up exactly as it would from the old stripes. A shopper's phone, meanwhile, reads the same code as an ordinary web link and resolves it (through a GS1 Digital Link resolver) to whatever the brand has published there: product information, provenance, recycling instructions, or a campaign. One code, two jobs. The QR symbol itself is the same ISO/IEC 18004 standard your campaign codes already use, so this is not new pixel technology, it is a smarter way of filling it.

The diagram above shows the arrangement during the transition. The numbered parts:

1. The linear (1D) barcode, still printed on the pack so older tills keep working.
2. The 2D code (a QR powered by GS1 Digital Link) carrying the GTIN in standardised form.
3. At the checkout, a 2D-capable scanner reads the GTIN from the QR and completes the sale.
4. On a phone, the same QR resolves to web content: product detail, sustainability data, or a marketing destination.

The distinction that matters: a Digital Link code is not your campaign QR

This is the point that trips up almost everyone, and it is the one piece of this article worth memorising. A GS1 Digital Link QR and the dynamic marketing QR you generate today are not interchangeable. They look identical as black-and-white squares, but they are structurally different and they do different jobs.

Here is the contrast, laid out plainly:

• What is encoded. A GS1 Digital Link QR holds a structured, GTIN-based URL that follows GS1 syntax. A marketing or dynamic QR (such as a ScanKit code, which redirects through a short /r/<slug> link) holds an arbitrary short URL pointing to an editable destination.
• Can a checkout till read it? The Digital Link code, yes: the GTIN is right there in the /01/ segment, so a compliant 2D POS scanner can complete a sale. The marketing QR, no: it has no GTIN structure and is not a point-of-sale barcode. It will never ring up a product.
• Does it resolve to a web page? Both do. The Digital Link code resolves through a GS1 resolver; the marketing QR resolves through a normal HTTP redirect.
• Can you change where it points after printing? Both can, which is the whole appeal of dynamic codes. With a marketing QR you re-point the slug; with a Digital Link code you reconfigure the resolver or landing page.
• Is it governed by a standard? The Digital Link code is, by GS1 Digital Link and the GS1 General Specifications. A marketing QR is just a URL, with no standard behind it.

The practical upshot for an agency: if a client needs the on-pack code to scan at the till, that has to be a properly formed GS1 Digital Link (or GS1 DataMatrix) code carrying the GTIN, and during the transition it still needs a linear barcode beside it. Your dynamic campaign QR is a separate concern. It is the right tool for posters, displays, leaflets and any marketing collateral that never goes near a checkout, and it can live on a pack too, but it is not a substitute for the POS code. Selling a plain marketing QR as a "checkout-ready" code is the fastest way to lose a retail client's trust. If you are still weighing the editable-destination model in general, our comparison of dynamic versus static QR codes covers the fundamentals.

Why the industry is actually moving

The motivation is capacity. A traditional UPC or EAN barcode carries essentially one thing: the GTIN. A 2D code holds far more and, crucially, can encode a web address. That unlocks the things retailers and brand owners have wanted for years: richer product transparency, stronger traceability for recalls, expiry and batch data captured at the till, recycling and sustainability information, and a direct line to the consumer's phone. GS1 frames the goal as "greater transparency, stronger traceability, and richer data". A barcode that links to a fresh, updatable web page does all of that; a static row of stripes cannot.

This is not a standards body pushing alone. In June 2024, more than 25 of the largest companies in retail and consumer goods, including Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, L'Oréal, Mondelez and Carrefour, with a combined market value above 1.5 trillion US dollars, signed a joint statement backing the transition to QR codes powered by GS1 standards. Real pilots are running too. In April 2025, GS1 UK reported that Tesco had expanded a trial of next-generation GS1-powered QR codes across 12 own-brand meat and produce lines with ten supplier partners, using the codes to capture use-by dates and batch numbers, described as the first trial of its kind and scale by a UK supermarket. GS1 UK has forecast that nearly half of its roughly 60,000 members could adopt the new codes as early as 2026, though that figure is a projection, not a result.

What this means for your packaging work

You do not need to become a GS1 implementation specialist. You do need to ask the right questions and give honest advice.

One code or two?

Decide early whether a given code has to work at the checkout. If it does, it belongs to the GS1 Digital Link world, will carry the GTIN, and during the transition will sit beside a linear barcode. If the code is purely for marketing, on a display, a leaflet, an out-of-home placement, or a non-scanned area of a pack, a dynamic campaign QR is simpler and gives you the analytics and editability you actually want. Many packs will end up carrying both kinds of code, and that is fine. What you must not do is merge the two jobs into a plain marketing QR and assume the till will read it.

Lead times make dynamic codes more valuable, not less

Packaging has brutal lead times and enormous print runs. A code printed on half a million cartons cannot be changed without a reprint, which is exactly why a dynamic redirect is so valuable here. Point the code at a destination you control, and you can change the page behind it (a seasonal campaign, a new promotion, a corrected link) without touching the artwork. This is the core argument for changing a QR code's destination without reprinting, and it applies with extra force on packaging, where reprints are measured in months and pallets.

Print quality is not optional on a pack

A code that fails to scan on a curved bottle or a flexible pouch is worse than no code at all. The fundamentals do not change because the code is on packaging: respect the quiet zone, keep the modules large enough to resolve, and choose a sensible error-correction level. Our guides on how big a QR code should be and preparing a QR code for print cover the production detail, and because a GS1 Digital Link URL can be long, it is worth understanding how much data a QR code can hold before you commit a dense code to a small pack.

Measure the marketing scans, not the checkout scans

Be precise about what you are counting. A point-of-sale scan is a transaction; a phone scan of the marketing destination is a campaign event. Only the second is yours to measure and optimise, and a dynamic code gives you the scan counts, timing and device data to do it. Treat on-pack campaign scans the same way you treat any other channel, which is to say through the lens of which scan metrics actually matter.

Frequently asked questions

Are barcodes being banned in 2027?

No. Sunrise 2027 (also called Ambition 2027) is a voluntary GS1 initiative for retail tills to be able to read 2D barcodes by the end of 2027. It is not a law and not a deadline that bans anything. Traditional linear barcodes stay in use, and GS1 requires a linear barcode alongside any retail 2D code until around 90% of point-of-sale systems can read 2D.

What is GS1 Digital Link?

GS1 Digital Link is a standard for writing a product's GS1 identifiers, such as its GTIN, as a structured web address. It uses a fixed path like /01/<GTIN>, which lets one QR code carry the product number for checkout scanning while also working as a normal web link that opens content on a phone. One code can do both jobs.

Can I just put my normal marketing QR code on a product to scan at the till?

No. A standard marketing or dynamic QR holds an arbitrary redirect URL and has no GTIN structure, so a checkout scanner cannot use it to ring up the product. Only a properly formed GS1 Digital Link (or GS1 DataMatrix) code carries the GTIN for point of sale. A marketing QR is the right tool for posters, displays and campaigns, not for the checkout.

Does the QR code on packaging need a separate barcode too?

During the transition, yes in most cases. GS1 states that until roughly 90% of point-of-sale systems can read 2D barcodes, a product carrying a retail 2D code must also carry a traditional linear barcode so it still scans at every till.

Is a packaging QR code dynamic, so the destination can change without reprinting?

It can be. Whether it is a GS1 Digital Link code resolved through a resolver or a marketing QR resolved through a redirect, the destination can be changed after printing. On packaging, with long lead times and large print runs, that editability is one of the strongest reasons to use a code whose target you control rather than hard-coding a fixed URL.

What standard is the QR code on a pack based on?

The QR symbol itself is defined by ISO/IEC 18004, the same standard behind ordinary QR codes. What makes a packaging code special is the GS1 Digital Link syntax it carries inside that symbol, governed by the GS1 Digital Link standard and the GS1 General Specifications.

The short version

The retail barcode is moving from 1D stripes to a 2D QR code, driven by GS1's voluntary Sunrise 2027 ambition for tills to read 2D codes by the end of 2027. It is a goal, not a law, and linear barcodes stay on packs until roughly 90% of point-of-sale systems can read 2D. The enabling standard is GS1 Digital Link, which writes a product's GTIN as a structured web address so one code scans at the checkout and opens content on a phone. The distinction to hold onto is that this GS1 code is not the same as your dynamic campaign QR: only the Digital Link code carries the GTIN for point of sale, while your marketing QR is for campaigns and collateral and must never be sold as checkout-ready. For agencies, the move makes dynamic, editable codes more useful, not less, because packaging reprints are slow and expensive, so point the code at a destination you control, keep the print quality tight, and measure the marketing scans as their own channel. Learn the difference now, and you will be the agency that gives a retail client a straight answer when the question lands.