What Is GS1 Digital Link?
GS1 Digital Link is an international standard that transforms product identification numbers such as the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) into web-native URLs. Instead of a plain number on a barcode, it creates a structured internet address that points directly to digital product information.
A traditional barcode contains only a number, for example 4012345678901. GS1 Digital Link turns this number into a URL:
https://id.gs1.de/01/04012345678901/21/SN12345
This URL encodes two key pieces of information: the product's GTIN (01 = Application Identifier for GTIN) and the individual unit's serial number (21 = Application Identifier for serial number). This makes every single battery uniquely identifiable worldwide, with its data accessible via the internet.
The critical difference from an ordinary QR code: a standard QR code links to any URL with no standardized structure. A GS1 Digital Link follows a globally uniform format that machines, authorities, and supply chain actors can automatically read and interpret.
EU Battery Regulation: Product Labeling Requirements
The EU Battery Regulation (EU 2023/1542) mandates a digital battery passport for EV batteries, industrial batteries above 2 kWh, and LMT batteries from February 2027. A central requirement: access to the battery passport must be provided via a QR code on the product.
Article 13 of the regulation governs labeling: every affected battery must carry a machine-readable data carrier that links to the battery passport. The DIN SPEC 99100 specifies the technical implementation and explicitly references GS1 Digital Link as the recommended identification mechanism.
In practice, this means the QR code on your battery cannot be an arbitrary link. It must contain a standardized product identification, the GTIN as the product identifier and the serial number as the individual unit identifier. Only then can authorities, market surveillance, recyclers, and other actors locate and verify the battery passport programmatically.
The regulation does not mandate a specific standard. However, GS1 Digital Link has established itself as the de facto standard for digital product identification, largely because GS1 in Europe worked with the Battery Pass consortium to develop it specifically for this use case.
How GS1 Digital Link Works in the Battery Passport
The GS1 Digital Link in the battery passport is built on three components:
1. Product Identification (GTIN)
Each battery model receives a Global Trade Item Number, issued by GS1 Germany or the respective national GS1 organization. The GTIN identifies the product type, for example a specific battery model from a manufacturer.
2. Individual Unit Identification (Serial Number)
Each individual battery also receives a serial number (Application Identifier 21). This identifies not just the model but the specific unit, a prerequisite for individual battery passports per battery.
3. Resolver
A resolver service resolves the GS1 Digital Link URL and routes requests to the appropriate destinations. The resolver routes by link type, not by who is scanning: one link type leads to the public product page, another to the battery passport. Which data a visitor actually gets is decided inside the passport by the access levels of Annex XIII, from the public information through the level for persons with a legitimate interest to the test reports reserved for notified bodies and market surveillance authorities.
As a GS1 Germany Solution Partner, DPP Hero validates GTINs and serial numbers to GS1 standards and encodes them as a GS1 Digital Link in the QR code of every published battery. Learn more about DPP Hero's partnership with GS1 Germany. The QR code carries the GTIN and serial number in the /01/{GTIN}/21/{serial} format and resolves through a resolver to the product page, exactly the machine-readable QR-code labeling that the EU Battery Regulation mandates from 2027 and for which DIN SPEC 99100 recommends GS1 Digital Link.
GS1 Digital Link vs. Proprietary QR Codes
Not every QR code on a battery is created equal. The difference between a GS1 Digital Link and a proprietary QR code has significant implications for your investment security, interoperability, and regulatory future-proofing.
Vendor Lock-in With Proprietary Solutions
A proprietary QR code typically links to the software vendor's domain, for example battery-passport-vendor.com/product/12345. This works as long as you use that vendor. If you switch providers, all printed QR codes break. The physical data carriers on your already-shipped batteries become useless.
With GS1 Digital Link, the domain is not tied to a software vendor. The URL follows a standardized structure that is vendor-independent. If you switch battery passport providers, you simply reconfigure the resolver. The QR codes on your batteries remain valid.
Interoperability
Authorities, market surveillance, and recyclers must process battery passports from thousands of different manufacturers. If every manufacturer uses a different QR code format, this becomes a challenge. GS1 Digital Link creates a uniform structure: every actor in the value chain can read the QR code, extract the GTIN, and retrieve the battery passport, without needing to know the specific software vendor.
Future-Proofing Beyond the Battery Passport
GS1 Digital Link is not limited to battery passports. The ESPR (Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation) will require digital product passports for numerous additional product categories, from textiles and electronics to construction materials. Companies that adopt GS1 Digital Link for their battery passport today are building on a standard that will apply to future product passport requirements as well. Learn more about the differences between battery passports and digital product passports in our comparison article.
What This Means for Manufacturers
If you need to create a battery passport, keep these steps in mind:
- Obtain a GTIN: If you do not yet have a Global Trade Item Number for your battery models, apply at GS1 Germany or your national GS1 organization. The GTIN is the foundation of the GS1 Digital Link.
- Organize serial number assignment: Each individual battery needs a unique serial number. Ensure your production assigns and documents serial numbers systematically.
- Print the QR code on the battery or packaging: The QR code with the GS1 Digital Link must be physically applied to the product or its packaging. Plan the integration into your labeling processes.
- Provide battery passport data behind the QR code: The URL in the QR code must point to a page where the mandatory battery passport data is available in a structured format.
DPP Hero fully covers the last step: when you publish a product, the platform automatically generates a public product page with a QR code. The data structure follows DIN SPEC 99100, all mandatory fields are covered in the guided 7-step editor.
GTIN, GLN, serial number: which identifier does what
Setting this up rarely fails on the QR code and almost always on the identifiers behind it. You need three, and they answer three different questions.
- GTIN (Global Trade Item Number): identifies the model. All batteries of the same type share it. Usually 13 digits; 8, 12 and 14-digit forms exist too.
- GLN (Global Location Number): identifies a location, always 13 digits. That can be your company as a legal entity or an individual plant; if you manufacture at several sites, you need one GLN per site. The battery passport needs it among other things for the manufacturing plant, and the carbon footprint declaration names that plant's geographical location expressly.
- Serial number: identifies the individual unit. Only GTIN plus serial number gives the unique identifier Article 77(3) requires. In GS1 syntax it sits behind application identifier 21.
The trap that costs the most time
A GLN on its own does not give you a GTIN. Order only the company identification and you end up with a number for yourself but none for your products, and you find out at the first publication attempt. So before ordering, work out how many GTINs you need: one per battery model, not per battery produced. Prices at GS1 Germany depend on the package and a turnover scale and they change; ask there rather than relying on a figure from a blog post.
The check digit, and why it catches typos
The last digit of a GTIN and a GLN is a check digit. It works like this: the digits are multiplied alternately by 3 and 1 from right to left, starting with 3; the products are summed; the difference to the next full ten is the check digit. If the sum divides evenly by ten, it is 0. The practical use: a transposed pair of digits shows up immediately because the check digit no longer matches. Anyone maintaining identifiers by hand should have it recalculated on every entry.
For serialisation the arithmetic is this: 10,000 built batteries of one model need one GTIN, one GLN and 10,000 serial numbers, so 10,000 passports with 10,000 QR codes. That multiplication is exactly what projects underestimate when they plan the passport as a model data sheet.
Besides GTIN and GLN, GS1 maintains further keys that show up around batteries without identifying the passport itself. The SSCC (Serial Shipping Container Code) marks a logistic unit such as a case, pallet or parcel, the GRAI (Global Returnable Asset Identifier) a returnable transport item, and the GIAI (Global Individual Asset Identifier) an individual fixed asset such as a vehicle or a machine. For the battery passport the combination of GTIN and serial number remains the key; the GLN names the economic operators that Annex XIII requires.
What the QR code has to satisfy physically
The Regulation makes two brief but hard demands. Article 13(7) requires labels and the QR code to be printed or engraved visibly, legibly and indelibly on the battery. A sticker that peels off after two years does not meet that. Where the nature or size of the battery does not allow or justify it, label and code may go on the packaging and the accompanying documents.
Annex VI Part C adds the optical side: the code must show a strong color contrast with the background and be large enough for common readers to capture easily, expressly including those built into mobile phones. Together this means in practice: dark on light, no printing on reflective or patterned ground, and a size that still works after ageing and soiling.
Three standards sit behind both requirements. Article 77(3) states verbatim that the QR code and the unique identifier shall comply with ISO/IEC standards 15459-1:2014 to 15459-6:2014 or equivalent ones; that series governs unique identifiers. For the QR code itself the Regulation names ISO/IEC 18004:2015. GS1 Digital Link, in turn, has been standardized as ISO/IEC 18975 since 2024, and GS1 states that its own standard is fully compliant with it. Working along these three numbers satisfies the Regulation and keeps you compatible with retail systems at the same time.
Which battery leads to which scan target
Not every QR code leads to a battery passport. Article 13(6) separates two cases:
- Passport: LV batteries, industrial batteries above 2 kWh and electric vehicle batteries lead to the battery passport under Article 77.
- Mandatory information: all other batteries, meaning portable batteries, SLI batteries and industrial batteries up to 2 kWh, lead to the information under Article 13(1) to (5), including the EU declaration of conformity.
The cut-off date is the same for both: 18 February 2027. So if you build portable batteries you need a QR code, but no passport.
Three operating models for the resolver
A GS1 Digital Link is a web address, and every web address needs a service that answers it. That service is called a resolver. For the battery passport there are three models, and the decision ends up printed on the battery, because the domain name is part of the address.
- The GS1 resolver at id.gs1.org: under the syntax standard, the canonical GS1 Digital Link address always begins with
https://id.gs1.org. This resolver returns only the links the brand owner has approved. - Your vendor's resolver: your passport vendor runs the service on its own domain. Such an address is valid under the standard, but not canonical. The resolver standard does not require every Digital Link address to be connected to a GS1-conformant resolver, nor that it redirect at all, although redirecting is strongly recommended.
- Your own resolver: on your own domain. GS1 publishes an open source Community Edition for this under the Apache 2.0 license. Every resolver stays sovereign over its own address space and describes its capabilities in machine-readable form at
/.well-known/gs1resolver.
The choice is not a matter of taste. Article 78(e) requires the passport to remain available even if the responsible economic operator ceases to exist or stops trading in the Union, and Article 77(5) requires the data to be transferable without vendor lock-in. So before you print a vendor's domain, settle two points in the contract: who keeps the address running if the vendor disappears, and what happens to the codes already printed if you switch vendors.
Sunrise 2027: the same code at the checkout
The battery passport is not the only reason a QR code lands on the packaging in 2027. Under the name Ambition 2027, widely known as Sunrise 2027, GS1 is running the transition from the linear barcode to 2D codes. The goal: retail point-of-sale scanners worldwide able to read and process both forms by the end of 2027.
The formats permitted at retail are the QR code with GS1 Digital Link syntax, the Data Matrix with the same syntax, and GS1 DataMatrix. That is exactly the syntax that also works for the battery passport. Build your passport code along GS1 Digital Link and you can reuse the same code at the checkout later, instead of printing two codes on the same pack.
One limitation belongs to the picture: until 90 percent of point-of-sale solutions can process GS1-compliant 2D codes and capture at least the GTIN, any product carrying a retail 2D code still needs a linear barcode alongside it. Dual use is therefore a target for label planning, not yet a replacement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a GTIN for the battery passport?
Yes. The GTIN is the standardized product identification number that forms the basis of the GS1 Digital Link. Without a GTIN, you cannot generate a standards-compliant QR code for your battery passport. GTINs are issued by the national GS1 organization, in Germany that is GS1 Germany.
What does a GTIN cost from GS1 Germany?
The cost of GS1 membership and GTIN assignment depends on company size and the required number allocation. GS1 Germany publishes current pricing on its website. For most battery manufacturers, GS1 membership is a manageable investment compared to the overall cost of battery passport implementation.
Can I create a battery passport without GS1 Digital Link?
Technically yes, you can provide a battery passport with any QR code. The EU Battery Regulation does not mandate a specific standard for the data carrier. However, DIN SPEC 99100 recommends GS1 Digital Link, and in practice, authorities, recyclers, and market surveillance rely on standardized identification. A proprietary QR code carries the risk of interoperability issues and vendor lock-in.
What happens if I switch battery passport providers?
With a GS1 Digital Link, you simply reconfigure the resolver, and the QR codes on your already-shipped batteries remain valid. With a proprietary QR code pointing to the old vendor's domain, you would need to relabel all batteries, practically impossible in most cases.
What is the difference between GS1 Digital Link and a regular QR code?
A regular QR code contains an arbitrary URL with no standardized structure. A GS1 Digital Link contains a URL with embedded product identification (GTIN, serial number) following an international standard. This enables machines, authorities, and other actors to automatically read and process the encoded information, regardless of which software vendor created the battery passport.
