The EAN-5 is a 5-digit European Article Number code, and is a supplement to the EAN-13 barcode used on books. It is used to give a suggestion for the price of the book.

ISBN Encoding – Country and Currency Values Description

The Encoding of EAN-5 characters is very similar to that of the other European Article Numbers. The only difference is that the digits are separated by 01. The EAN-5 always begins with '01011.' Also, the R-Code is not used.

The structure of the barcode is based on the checksum. In order to compute the checksum, multiply each of the digits by either 3 or 9, alternating each time. Then add them and then do a mod 10. So the checksum for 05415 MN is 1 based on the following calculations:

    0*3=0
    5*9=45
    4*3=12
    1*9=9
    5*3=15
  ----------
     81     %    10  = 1

Once you have the checksum digit, you can look up the structure in the following table. Note that the checksum digit is not in the final 5 digits, and is not intended to validate the 5 digit data, but rather to validate the reading of the EAN-5 overall.

• NACS Codes
• Barcode Reference - Section 6.1.46.2
• Barcode Writer - The basis for the barcode structure
• U.P.C. Symbol Specification Manual - Appendix D - Two-Character and Five-Character to UPC symbol.