GS1 Sunrise 2027 is the retail industry's target, coordinated by GS1, for point-of-sale systems worldwide to be able to scan 2D barcodes by the end of 2027. It is an ambition rather than a law — the dates that bind a supplier come from its retailers and, separately, from EU product regulation arriving in the same window.
GS1 Sunrise 2027 & EU DPP Rollout Roadmap
Preparation & Dual Marking
Brands begin dual-printing 1D + 2D codes on packaging. Retailers test 2D scanners.
EU Battery DPP Mandate
First mandatory EU Digital Product Passport — LMT and EV batteries, and industrial batteries over 2 kWh, placed on the EU market.
GS1 Sunrise 2027 Target
Global retail POS systems switch to scanning 2D GS1 Digital Link barcodes at checkout.
ESPR Rules Start to Apply
Iron and steel first, then textiles, furniture and other groups, each on the date its own delegated act sets.
Who Sunrise 2027 actually affects
Sunrise 2027 is a retail-side commitment: point-of-sale systems worldwide should be able to read 2D barcodes by the end of 2027. It is not a law, and no regulator will fine you for missing it. What happens instead is commercial — retailers set their own dates, and suppliers who are not ready lose listings.
- Brands and manufacturers — decide what goes on the pack, and carry the cost of getting it wrong
- Retailers and distributors — set the deadline their suppliers actually feel, and upgrade the scanners
- Packaging and prepress suppliers — produce artwork that has to satisfy both the old and the new symbol
- Importers into the EU — face Sunrise and the Digital Product Passport in the same planning cycle
The last group has the tightest schedule. The EU battery passport obligation lands in February 2027 and the Sunrise target closes the same year, so the packaging change and the compliance change arrive together rather than one after the other.
A readiness checklist for Sunrise 2027
Work through these in order. Each step depends on the one before it, and the first two take longer than teams expect.
- Audit your GTIN master data — every product that will carry a code needs a correct, current GTIN, and this is where most delays appear
- Confirm what your largest retail partners require, and by when — their dates matter more than the 2027 target
- Decide which Application Identifiers you need beyond the GTIN — batch (10), serial (21), expiry, based on the regulation covering each product
- Choose and secure a resolver domain, then verify it answers correctly for a test identifier
- Add the 2D symbol to artwork alongside the existing 1D barcode — dual marking, so nothing stops scanning
- Test print on the real substrate and printing method, not on a proof
- Scan-test with a retail-grade scanner and a phone before the artwork is signed off
- Roll out by product family rather than all at once, starting with the lines closest to a regulatory deadline
How Sunrise 2027 and the EU passport overlap
They are separate programmes that happen to need the same square. Sunrise is a retail scanning transition with no legal force. The Digital Product Passport is EU law under ESPR and the Battery Regulation, with mandatory dates.
The overlap is the carrier. Both are satisfied by a GS1 Digital Link code on the pack — which means a company preparing for one is most of the way through the other. Treating them as a single packaging project rather than two is usually the difference between one artwork change and two.
The dates around Sunrise, in one table
Sunrise is one line in a crowded calendar, and the lines have different legal weights. This is the part that planning meetings get wrong most often.
| Date | What | Legal force | Whose deadline it really is |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 February 2027 | EU battery passport becomes mandatory | Law — EU Battery Regulation, Article 77 | Whoever places LMT or EV batteries, or industrial batteries over 2 kWh, on the EU market |
| 18 August 2027 | Battery due diligence obligations apply | Law — Article 48, as postponed | The same operators, six months later |
| End of 2027 | Sunrise 2027 — retail checkouts scan 2D | Industry target, no legal force | Retailers; suppliers feel it through them |
| 2026–2029, indicative | ESPR delegated acts per product group | Law once each act is adopted | Each product group in turn |
| Earlier than all of these | Your largest retailer's own onboarding date | Contract | You — this is the one that arrives first |
Read the last row twice. For most suppliers the operative deadline is not 2027 and not an EU date — it is the day their biggest customer's supplier portal starts asking for a 2D code, which routinely lands a year or more before the programme target.
Walkthrough: a supplier plans backwards from one retailer's date
A representative scenario. A household goods manufacturer hears that its largest chain will require 2D-capable artwork for all new listings from March 2027, and treats that — not “end of 2027” — as the deadline.
Counting backwards. Listing paperwork is due six weeks before shelf date, artwork sign-off eight weeks before that, print trials four weeks earlier, and the GTIN master-data audit has to finish before artwork starts. From March 2027 the chain of dependencies reaches back to mid-2026 — so a supplier who starts later is already behind.
What the audit finds. Of 900 GTINs, 60 turn out to be reused, retired or wrongly assigned — the ordinary archaeology of a twenty-year-old product catalogue. Fixing identity before printing it into millions of symbols is the whole reason the audit comes first.
What ships. Dual-marked artwork, family by family, regulated products first. The retailer's date is met with one artwork cycle to spare.
The counterfactual. A competitor waits for “the official deadline”, discovers in autumn 2027 that the same retailer's portal now rejects 1D-only artwork for new listings, and spends the winter re-artworking under rush fees while its listings queue. Sunrise never fined anyone; the calendar did.
Edge cases
You sell only through marketplaces. Marketplace listings rarely check symbols today, so the pressure arrives later — but the EU passport rules apply regardless of channel, and a marketplace seller placing batteries on the EU market is still an economic operator.
Own-label manufacturing. The GTIN belongs to the brand owner. If you produce private label, the 2D decision is your customer's; your job is print quality and the variable data, which is where the specification grades live.
Export markets on different clocks. Retail readiness moves at different speeds by country. Dual marking is what lets one artwork serve a market that has upgraded and one that has not.
Products with no packaging. Direct part marking or a durable tag replaces the printed symbol; the identifier and the resolver logic stay the same.
Very long shelf lives. A pack printed in 2026 may still be on sale years later. Whatever you print now must still resolve then — which is an argument for a domain you own and a record you keep, not a campaign URL.
Zoom out: Sunrise is the soft half of a hard transition
Sunrise on its own would just be a scanner upgrade. What makes it consequential is what shares its window: the battery passport in February 2027, due diligence in August 2027, and ESPR acts queued behind them. Retail wants the 2D symbol for the checkout; regulation needs the same symbol as the door into the product's record.
That coincidence is the practical advice. Companies that treat Sunrise and the passport as one packaging-and-data project do the artwork once. Companies that treat them separately do it twice, a year apart, and pay twice. Our migration roadmap sequences the work, the 2D barcode page covers the symbol itself, and the Digital Link page covers the address inside it.
How Passmith fits
Passmith is the resolver and passport layer behind the code — the part that has to keep answering long after the artwork is signed off. The product is live, and nothing in the checklist above requires it: the audit, the retailer conversation and the print trials are yours to run with or without us. Where we help is the step after the symbol scans: making the identifier resolve, per audience, for the life of the product.
Common questions about Sunrise 2027
Is Sunrise 2027 a legal requirement?
No. It is an industry transition coordinated by GS1, not legislation. The pressure is commercial: retailers set their own supplier deadlines, and those arrive earlier than the 2027 target for many categories.
What happens if I am not ready by the end of 2027?
Nothing legal. Practically, checkouts will keep reading a 1D barcode for as long as you print one — which is exactly why dual marking is the safe path. The commercial risk is a retailer that has already moved and stops accepting 1D-only products.
Do I need to change my GTINs?
No. Sunrise changes how the identifier is carried, not the identifier itself. Your existing GTINs move into the 2D symbol unchanged — which is why the master data audit is the first step, not a new numbering exercise.
Does Sunrise 2027 apply outside retail?
The programme itself is about retail checkouts. But the same 2D symbol is the carrier the EU passport rules assume, so healthcare, industrial and B2B goods meet the identical technology through regulation rather than through a till.
Sunrise 2027 or the EU passport — which should drive our plan?
The passport, wherever it applies to you, because it is law with fixed dates. Sunrise then comes almost free: the same GS1 Digital Link symbol satisfies both, which is why the two belong in a single artwork project rather than two.