EAN/UCC Check Digit Calculation

For this posting, I’m going to confine the discussion of check digit calculation to The EAN/UCC GTINs (Global Trade Item Number) that I discussed in the previous posting.


UCC-12 or UPC Number

The check digit for the UCC-12 or UPC Number is calculated using the standard modulo calculation. For this example, we will assume that your number is 78211300054.

Step 1 – Take the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh digits and add them together (7 + 2 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 4 = 14).

Step 2 – Take the result of step 1 and multiply by 3 (14 x 3 = 42).

Step 3 – Take the second, fourth, sixth, eighth and tenth digits and add them together (8 + 1 + 3 + 0 + 5 = 17).

Step 4 – Add the results of step 2 and step 3 together (42 + 17 = 59).

Step 5 – The check digit is the number required to add to the result of step 4 to make it a multiple of 10 (59 + 1 = 60), the check digit is 1.


EAN/UCC-13

The check digit for the EAN/UCC-13 is calculated using the standard modulo calculation. For this example, we will assume that your number is 078211300054.

Step 1 – Take the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth and twelfth digits and add them together (7 + 2 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 4 = 14).

Step 2 – Take the result of step 1 and multiply by 3 (14 x 3 = 42).

Step 3 – Take the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh digits and add them together (0 + 8 + 1 + 3 + 0 + 5 = 17).

Step 4 – Add the results of step 2 and step 3 together (42 + 17 = 59).

Step 5 – The check digit is the number required to add to the result of step 4 to make it a multiple of 10 (59 + 1 = 60), the check digit is 1.


EAN/UCC-14

The check digit for the EAN/UCC-14 is calculated using the standard modulo calculation. For this example, we will assume that your number is 2078211300054.

Step 1 – Take the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh and thirteenth digits and add them together (2 + 7 + 2 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 4 = 16).

Step 2 – Take the result of step 1 and multiply by 3 (16 x 3 = 48).

Step 3 – Take the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth and twelfth digits and add them together (0 + 8 + 1 + 3 + 0 + 5 = 17).

Step 4 – Add the results of step 2 and step 3 together (48 + 17 = 65).

Step 5 – The check digit is the number required to add to the result of step 4 to make it a multiple of 10 (65 + 5 = 70), the check digit is 5.


EAN/UCC-8 (For International Use Only)

The check digit for the EAN/UCC-8 is calculated using the standard modulo calculation. For this example, we will assume that your number is 7830054.

Step 1 – Take the first, third, fifth and seventh digits and add them together (7 + 3 + 0 + 4 = 14).

Step 2 – Take the result of step 1 and multiply by 3 (14 x 3 = 42).

Step 3 – Take the second, fourth and sixth digits and add them together (8 + 0 + 5 = 13).

Step 4 – Add the results of step 2 and step 3 together (42 + 13 = 55).

Step 5 – The check digit is the number required to add to the result of step 4 to make it a multiple of 10 (55 + 5 = 60), the check digit is 5.