GTIN, UPC, EAN and FNSKU are four different things and only one of them you buy. What each is, what GS1 actually charges, why cheap resold barcodes get your Amazon listing suppressed, and what has to be printed on the goods and the cartons before they leave the factory.
This is a small subject that blocks launches completely. A first-time importer discovers at listing time that they need an identifier, buys the cheapest thing that looks like one, and finds out weeks later that the listing was suppressed for a reason nobody explained.
The confusion is that four different codes are all called “the barcode” in conversation. One of them you license from a standards body. One is Amazon's and is free. Two are formats of the first. Once that is clear the rest is straightforward.
The umbrella term for the product identifier itself. A GTIN is the number; UPC and EAN are formats it comes in. When a marketplace asks for a GTIN, it is asking for the number on your barcode.
Issued byIssued by GS1, the global standards body, and by nobody else legitimately.
The 12-digit North American format, and the barcode you see on a US retail shelf. It is a GTIN-12.
Issued bySame GS1 number, formatted for the North American market.
The 13-digit international format, a GTIN-13. Functionally the same thing with an extra digit; modern scanners read both.
Issued bySame GS1 issuance. Which format you need is a market question, not a different registration.
Amazon's internal code, not a GTIN and not interchangeable with one. It identifies your inventory inside Amazon's warehouses so your units are not commingled with another seller's.
Issued byIssued by Amazon, free, and only meaningful inside FBA.
There are no freight rates or 3PL rates anywhere on this site because they vary by lane, season and negotiation. These are different: they are the issuing authority’s published list prices, identical for every applicant, so printing them is reporting a fact rather than implying a quote.
| Capacity | Initial | Annual renewal | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 GTIN | $30 | None | A single product. Fine if you have one SKU and no plans. |
| 10 | $250 | $50 / year | The usual starting point for a small brand with variants. |
| 100 | $750 | $150 / year | A real catalog, or one product with many sizes and colors. |
| 1,000 | $2,500 | $500 / year | Established range. |
GS1 US published pricing, as at August 2026. Confirm current fees with GS1 before budgeting. Note that capacity counts sellable variants: every size, color and multipack is its own number, which is how a brand that bought ten discovers it needs sixty.
There is a large market in cheap UPCs, sold at a few dollars for a handful, usually originating from prefixes issued to a company decades ago and since broken up and resold. Amazon cross-references barcodes against the GS1 database and checks that the Company Prefix actually belongs to the brand owner. A resold code either is not registered to you or is registered to somebody else, and the listing is suppressed on arrival. Thirty dollars spent correctly beats five dollars spent twice.
Amazon can grant an exemption for handmade, unbranded or private-label goods without manufacturer barcodes. Approval standards have tightened, and an exemption is product-and-brand specific rather than a general pass. It is a legitimate route and it is not a shortcut around registering properly if you intend to have a catalog.
If your factory offers to supply barcodes, ask whose prefix they come from. A GTIN under the factory's prefix identifies their product, which is a problem the moment you change supplier, and it is visible to anyone who looks the number up.
Every size, every color, every multipack is a separate sellable item and needs its own number. This is where a brand that bought ten codes discovers it needed sixty, usually the week before launch.
All four of these are cheap to get right at the factory and expensive to correct in a US warehouse. Every one belongs in the purchase order rather than in a conversation.
The country of origin labeling requirements are strict. US law requires imported articles to be marked with their country of origin, legibly, permanently enough to reach the ultimate purchaser, and in English. This is a legal marking requirement with its own enforcement, separate from the tariff question of what your origin actually is. Goods arriving unmarked or wrongly marked can be held, and correcting it at the port is expensive. Confirm the specifics for your article with CBP or your customs broker, because the exceptions and the acceptable methods are article-specific.
The carton markings that let a forwarder, a terminal and a warehouse identify your goods without opening them: consignee, destination, purchase order, carton number and total (3 of 12), gross and net weight, dimensions, and any handling symbols. Agree the format with your factory and put it in the purchase order, because a container of unmarked identical brown cartons is a receiving problem that bills by the hour.
Amazon requires a polybag above a certain size to carry a suffocation warning, and a polybag over a threshold to be a minimum thickness, with the barcode scannable through the polybag or applied to the outside. This is a factory instruction rather than a warehouse one: printing the suffocation warning on the polybag at source is far cheaper than re-bagging a container in the US.
If you are selling into physical retail, the requirements come from the retailer rather than from any standard: case pack quantities, inner packs, shelf-ready display outers, GS1-128 logistics labels on the pallet, and a routing guide that specifies all of it. Ask for the vendor guide before you quote, because it changes your packaging cost and sometimes your carton dimensions.
Stable labeling belongs at the factory, written into the purchase order and checked at the container loading inspection so it is verified before the doors close. Anything that changes after production, FNSKU labels for a reseller, promotional stickers, region-specific inserts, is warehouse work, and we do that in ours. What we will not do is tell you which identifiers your specific retail channel demands, because that comes from their vendor guide and it is worth reading it before you quote.
If you are selling on Amazon or into retail, effectively yes. Marketplaces verify the number against the GS1 database and check that the company prefix belongs to the brand owner, so a code from anywhere else fails. If you are selling only through your own store and shipping yourself, you can operate without one, and you will need them the moment a retailer or marketplace is involved.
They are the same thing at different lengths. GTIN is the umbrella term for the identifier; UPC is the 12-digit North American format and EAN is the 13-digit international one. You register once with GS1 and the format follows the market. When a marketplace asks for a GTIN it means the number on your barcode, whichever format it is printed in.
GS1 US publishes its own fees: $30 for a single GTIN with no annual renewal, then company prefix tiers at $250 for 10, $750 for 100 and $2,500 for 1,000, with annual renewals of $50, $150 and $500 respectively. Those are the issuing authority's list prices as published and are the same for everybody, which is why we are comfortable printing them here when we will not print a freight rate. Confirm them with GS1 before you budget, because they can change.
You can buy them and they will not work where it matters. Resold codes come from prefixes issued to other companies, so the brand-owner check fails and the listing is suppressed. The saving is a few dollars and the cost is a launch delay plus buying the correct ones anyway.
It is Amazon's own label, free, and it identifies your specific inventory inside their warehouses so your units are not commingled with another seller's. It is not a substitute for a GTIN and a GTIN is not a substitute for it. As of 31 March 2026, resellers must apply FNSKU labels to all FBA inventory, while brand owners using manufacturer barcodes can still use those. Platform labeling policy changes often enough that this is worth confirming in Seller Central rather than taking from any page, including this one.
At low volume, doing it yourself is often correct and we will say so. Prep is labeling, polybagging, bundling and carton work, and if you have a few hundred units and an evening, that is a real option. It stops being one when volume rises, when a mistake means a whole shipment is refused at an Amazon dock, or when the goods are arriving by container and would have to be shipped to you first and then on to Amazon, which is paying freight twice on the same units. The cleanest version is prep written into the purchase order so the factory does the stable parts, with only what genuinely has to change afterwards handled here.
At the factory, almost always, if the labels are stable. It is a fraction of the cost of doing it in the US and it means the cartons arrive ready to receive. The exception is anything that changes after production: FNSKU labels for a reseller, promotional stickers, or region-specific inserts. Those are worth doing in the warehouse, and we do them in ours.
The markings on the outside of your export cartons that let everyone in the chain identify the goods without opening them: consignee, destination, purchase order, carton number and total, weights, dimensions and handling symbols. You decide them and you put them in the purchase order. Leave it to the factory and you get their default, which is often the minimum, and receiving a container of identical unmarked cartons costs real money at the other end.
Almost certainly. US law requires imported articles to be marked with their country of origin in English, legibly and durably enough to reach the final purchaser. That is a separate question from what your country of origin legally is, which is decided by substantial transformation. Both are worth settling before production rather than at the port, and the specifics for your article are a question for a licensed customs broker.
Amazon, your own store, a retailer, or all three. The channel decides which identifiers and which packaging you need, and it is much cheaper to know before the first production run.
We'll come back with a scope and a quote. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.