How small can an EAN-13 or Code 128 barcode be?

A barcode that's too small scans badly, and a barcode that scans badly costs money: queues at the till, mis-sorted parcels, returns. Before you shrink one, it's worth knowing a few numbers.

EAN-13: a reference size with some room to move

The EAN-13 on retail products has a nominal size of 37.29 × 25.93 mm including the digits. GS1 guidance allows it to be reduced to 80 % and enlarged to 200 %. At 80 % it measures roughly 29.8 × 20.7 mm.

What people forget is the quiet zone – the blank space on the left and right. It is part of the code: at 100 % it's about 3.6 mm on the left and 2.3 mm on the right. A barcode pushed against the label edge or a line of text won't always scan.

In practice:

• on a 50 × 25 mm label, an EAN-13 fits comfortably at 80–90 %;
• on a 40 × 25 mm label you need to go towards 80 % and keep the quiet zones clear;
• trimming the bar height to save space isn't recommended for products scanned at a till.

Code 128: width depends on the content

Code 128 has no fixed size – the more characters, the longer it gets. You keep it readable by controlling the width of the narrowest bar. In logistics (GS1-128 carton and pallet labels), bars and height are much larger than on a product, because they're often scanned from a distance.

Your printer matters too

A thermal printer prints in dots: about 8 dots per millimetre at 203 dpi, 12 at 300 dpi. Bar widths should land on whole dots; otherwise some bars print wider and others narrower. Good label software handles this for you, but test with a scanner before printing a whole roll. Our guide on making barcode labels walks through it.

The right label size

50 × 25 and 50 × 30 mm are the most comfortable sizes for an EAN-13 plus a price or SKU. Both are in our barcode labels range on thermal rolls with a 40 mm core.