What it is
Sunrise 2027 is the date by which the global retail industry has aligned on enabling 2D barcode reading at point-of-sale. The 2D barcode in this context carries a GS1 Digital Link URL that encodes a GTIN, exactly like an old EAN-13 does, plus optional batch and serial qualifiers, plus a resolvable URL that consumers can open on a phone.
In short: the 1D barcode era was about identifying the product. The 2D era is about identifying the product AND giving consumers a doorway into the brand's data.
Sunrise 2027 is the year retail point-of-sale catches up to where consumer phones already are.
Who set it
GS1 coordinated the effort through its global and national member organizations. The published GS1 2D barcodes hub at gs1.org/2dbarcodes is the canonical source for the Sunrise 2027 alignment. Sunrise 2027 working groups have been active across grocery, drug, beauty and general merchandise. Retailers, manufacturers, packaging printers and POS vendors all participate. Several of the largest grocery chains globally have publicly committed.
The platform is built around the standards GS1 publishes. We don't represent GS1, but every URL the platform produces is shaped to GS1 Digital Link specifications and validated against them.
What it means for brands
Practically: every brand selling through retail with a 2D-capable point-of-sale needs to plan a 2D barcode migration on packaging. The 2D code carries the GTIN at the till and resolves to your product page on a phone. Same code, two purposes.
- Your existing GTIN keeps working. No new identity to allocate.
- Your packaging artwork gains a 2D code, often alongside the existing 1D barcode during transition.
- Your product page becomes a real public passport addressable by the same code.
- Your retail point-of-sale gains a single richer identity carrier instead of two parallel codes.
Industry goal versus government regulation
Sunrise 2027 is an industry alignment, not a regulation. It's a coordinated date the industry has set itself. There's no fine for missing it. The penalty, if you can call it that, is that your packs lag the channel.
Government regulation around 2D barcodes is a separate story. The EU's ESPR regulation, FSMA 204 in the US, and EUDR in the EU all require structured product data and traceability that lands well on a 2D barcode-addressable passport, but they're enforced by different bodies with different deadlines.
What to do now
If you have a packaging refresh in the next twelve to eighteen months, this is the right moment to slot in the migration. The platform's five-phase plan sequences it around your existing print cycle so nothing changes about how you ship.