GS1 prefixes
A GS1 company prefix is the licensed number range that GS1 assigns to your organisation. Every GTIN (barcode number) you create begins with one of your GS1 prefixes. Declaring your prefixes in Traceable, and having Traceable verify them against your GS1 licence, lets the platform confirm that the GTINs on your battery passports genuinely belong to you. This is a Traceable publish rule, not a requirement of EU Battery Regulation 2023/1542: the Regulation requires no GTIN or GS1 prefix, and its Article 77(3) requires the QR code and the unique identifier to comply with the ISO/IEC 15459 standards or their equivalent.
You manage prefixes in Settings → Company profile, in the GS1 Prefixes section. Only team Admins can save prefixes or upload a licence ("Only team admins can update GS1 prefixes.").
Why this matters
The publish gate (the set of checks a passport must pass before it goes live) uses your verified prefixes in two ways:
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A verified prefix is checked, and what happens without one depends on the product category. Without a verified prefix, battery passports can still be published. The publish check shows a reminder instead, for example: "Recommended. The EU battery passport guidance does not require a GS1 company prefix; a verified prefix protects your GTINs on the platform." Other product categories, and products whose category cannot be resolved, are blocked from publishing until a prefix is verified. This does not depend on your plan.
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A product's GTIN should match one of your prefixes. If a product has a GTIN assigned, that GTIN should begin with one of your verified prefixes. If it does not, the publish check reports a GTIN ownership gap. On battery categories this is a reminder and does not block publishing. On other categories it blocks. A GTIN that is not valid (wrong check digit or length) does block mandated battery categories, where a global identifier is required.
The settings section tells you the same thing. When no prefix is listed, it shows a callout titled No verified GS1 prefix yet: "Battery passports publish with a reminder until you add one; other product categories cannot publish without at least one verified prefix". When you have declared prefixes but none is verified yet, it shows a callout titled Awaiting verification: "N claim(s) pending review. Until Traceable verifies your GS1 licence, battery passports publish with a reminder and other product categories stay blocked".
Declaring a prefix does not generate GTINs for you. Traceable reviews the licence certificate you upload before it treats a prefix as yours. Obtaining a GS1 licence and assigning GTINs to your products remains your responsibility.
Declaring a prefix
- Go to Settings → Company profile and scroll to the GS1 Prefixes section.
- Enter a prefix in the input field (placeholder: "e.g. 5012345 (6-12 digits)"). A prefix is 6 to 12 digits, numbers only. Your prefixes typically appear on your GS1 licence certificate, issued by your GS1 Member Organisation.
- Press Enter or click Add. The prefix appears as a badge in the list.
- Repeat for each prefix your GS1 licence covers (up to 50 per company).
- Click Save changes to persist the list. New prefixes are saved as claims awaiting verification. The publish gate does not honour a claim until Traceable has verified it.
- For each claim awaiting verification, click Upload licence and attach your GS1 licence certificate (PDF, PNG or JPEG, up to 10 MB). The button appears only on claims awaiting review. Once a file is on file, the button changes to Replace licence.
Traceable then reviews the licence and either verifies the claim or rejects it. Each listed prefix shows a badge: Verified, Awaiting verification or Unsaved (added on screen but not yet saved). Rejected and revoked claims are listed under Claims needing attention with the reviewer's reason. Re-add the prefix with a corrected licence to resubmit.
Your changes are not saved until you click Save changes. Adding or removing prefixes only updates the on-screen list until you save.
If the publish gate reports that your GS1 prefix is not registered or is awaiting verification, this page is the resolution path: declare the prefix(es) your GS1 licence issuer assigned you, upload the licence certificate, wait for Traceable to verify the claim, and then re-run the publish. For battery categories, publishing is not blocked by the missing prefix. For other categories it is.
Removing a prefix
- In the GS1 Prefixes section, click the × on the prefix badge you want to remove.
- Click Save changes.
There is no in-place edit. To correct a prefix, remove the incorrect one and add the correct one, then save.
If you have no verified prefix, products in categories other than battery categories cannot be published until you have at least one. Battery passports can still be published, with a reminder. This does not depend on your plan.
Validation rules
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Format | Digits only, 6 to 12 digits per prefix |
| Maximum | 50 prefixes per company |
| Duplicates | A prefix already in your list cannot be added again |
If you enter a value that breaks one of these rules, the page shows an inline message, for example:
"<value>" is not a valid GS1 prefix (6-12 digits only).Prefix "<value>" is already in the list.Maximum 50 GS1 prefixes per company.
Serial and batch identifiers: the 20-character rule
GS1 prefixes govern the GTIN. Two other identifiers on your products travel inside the same GS1 Digital Link and have their own hard constraint:
- Serial number (GS1 Application Identifier 21)
- Batch or lot ID (GS1 Application Identifier 10)
Each is 1 to 20 characters. Use only letters A-Z and a-z, digits 0-9, and the characters ., _ and -. The first character must be a letter or digit. Traceable enforces this at data entry. For example, a 21-character serial is rejected in the product editor with this message:
Enter Serial Number exactly as marked on the battery (GS1 AI 21). This value is 21 characters; the platform saves at most 20, and a longer value makes the item-level GS1 Digital Link permanently unreachable. If the marked number does not fit, contact support before changing it.
If your ERP or labelling system produces identifiers longer than 20 characters, shorten them before entering them into Traceable, because the printed QR code on the physical battery has to resolve for the passport's lifetime.
GTIN integrity checks
Alongside prefix ownership, Traceable validates the GTIN itself:
- Check digit: the GTIN's check digit is validated when you create or update a product, so a mistyped GTIN is caught at entry rather than at publish. A GTIN has 8, 12, 13 or 14 digits. The message is
GTIN <g> is not a valid GS1 GTIN: the check digit does not match. - Global uniqueness: a GTIN can belong to only one product across the whole platform, not merely within your own account. The message is
GTIN <g> is already assigned to another product. GTINs must be globally unique per GS1 specifications. - If a public
/01/{gtin}link ever matches more than one product, the resolver shows a chooser page listing the matches rather than silently picking one. See QR codes and the resolver.
How prefixes relate to QR codes and GTINs
When a product has a GTIN assigned, Traceable can build a GS1 Digital Link QR code for it (the format EU Battery Regulation requires on the physical battery). The GTIN in that QR code is the same GTIN the publish gate checks against your registered prefixes. Registering your prefixes therefore keeps your QR codes, your published passports, and your declared GTIN ownership consistent.
For how GTIN-based QR codes are generated, see QR codes. For the developer view of GTIN resolution, see DPP endpoints.