GTIN, SGTIN or batch

The GTIN, the lot number and the SGTIN are three different identifiers and are often treated as one. The GTIN names the model. The lot number names the batch it was made in. The SGTIN, which is the GTIN with a serial added, names the one unit in your customer's hands. A passport can be attached at any of the three levels, and knowing which one you need saves a lot of relabelling later.

Your GTIN, one per SKU

A GTIN is licensed to your brand by your GS1 member organisation, and there is one per SKU, not one per item. We allocate serial numbers on your GTIN under a written delegation, with an allocation rule for your brand, so the serials we issue cannot collide with serials issued by anyone else on your behalf. We do not generate GTINs.

If a line has no GTIN yet, you are not blocked. We give the product a durable internal identity so a GTIN can be added later without reissuing a single label or passport. Most passports are minted automatically as products and orders flow in from your store, and the identifier is assigned when the purchase order goes to the factory, so by the time an item ships it already has the identity it will keep for life.

The serial number

A printed code can be photocopied, so on its own it proves little. The item's recorded history cannot be copied. A genuine scan opens a record with a factory date, a shipment and a delivery behind it. A counterfeit scan hits an identifier that was never issued, or one already tied to another unit, and the difference is visible in a second. So the passport is attached to the SGTIN, the single unit, and a batch passport is the fallback for stock that was never labelled at item level.

The code can be copied. The history behind it cannot.

Model, batch or item

A passport can be registered at model, batch or item level. An item passport must link to its batch and model identifiers where they exist, a batch passport to its model, and when several EU rules ask for different levels, the most granular level applies. In practice the profile of the product lives at the model, the proof issued per lot lives at the batch, and the custody record lives at the item.

For stock that is already made and not labelled at item level, a batch passport per lot is a level the regulation allows. Items produced from now on get their own serial and their own passport. Both routes are inside every paid plan, so the choice depends only on which stock you hold.

The code on your own domain

GS1 Digital Link lets anyone run a resolver on any domain, and GS1 recommends that the QR resolve on your own web domain, so that you can change provider later without reprinting codes that are already sewn into products. GS1's Sunrise 2027 programme asks retail tills to read a QR code carrying the GTIN inside a Digital Link, with serial and lot optional in the code and the EAN-13 barcode kept alongside until the retailer is ready, which means one code on the item can serve the till and the passport.

The partner view

The events behind the record are written in EPCIS, a fixed vocabulary any partner can read without building a custom integration. Each event answers four questions: what, an SGTIN for one unit, an LGTIN for one lot or an SSCC for one carton; when; where, the read point and the business location; and why, the business step and the state the item is in, such as in transit, returned or recalled. Your 3PL, your retailer and a regulator read the same event and understand it the same way.