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Barcode Company Prefix

Name: Barcodes New Zealand
Address: New Zealand
Telephone: +64 (0) 9 445 1296
Price range: 2.50-59 NZD

A barcode company prefix is a unique string of numbers assigned to your business as part of a barcode number (typically the first few digits). It identifies your company as the registered owner of the barcode numbers and is used when you buy a large block of barcodes, such as 10, 100, or 1,000.

Do I need a one?

Yes, if you’re producing a large range of products and want to maintain consistent ownership and traceability across all your barcodes.
No, if you only need a small number of barcodes (e.g. 1–9), you can buy individual barcodes without getting a company prefix. These still work globally and are suitable for most small businesses.

Benefits of having a company prefix:

Links all your products under one unified barcode ownership
Helps retailers and distributors quickly identify your company
Makes inventory and cataloguing easier as your product range grows

In short, if you’re planning for long-term growth and wide product distribution, getting a company prefix is a smart move. But for smaller-scale use, it’s not strictly necessary.

There are two ways you can get this:

(1) Join GS1 and pay their joining fee and annual license fees; or

(2) Purchase barcodes from our company in blocks of 10, 100, 1000, or 10,000. We are the ONLY bar code supplier that we know of that provides unique company prefixes.

If you order a single bar code number from our company, you won’t receive a company prefix (single barcode numbers don’t come with company prefixes).

However, if you order bar codes in quantities of 10, 100, 1000, etc., you will receive a unique company prefix.

The length of the company prefix depends on how many variations are required to make 13 digits.
For example – if you purchase 10 barcode numbers, then of the 13 digits, the first 11 will be your company prefix, the 12th digit will vary from 0-9 (giving you 10 different barcode numbers), and the last digit is a calculated checksum.
Similarly, if you purchase 20 barcode numbers, you will get 2 company prefixes (giving 10 barcodes for each).
If you purchase 100 barcode numbers, then of the 13 digits, the first 10 will be your company prefix, the 11th & 12th digits will vary from 00-99 (giving you 100 different barcode numbers), and the last digit is a calculated checksum.