Korean Postal Authority Code Generator

What Is the Korean Postal Authority Code?

The Korean Postal Authority Code is a barcode symbology developed for South Korea's postal service to encode postal routing information on mail pieces. Unlike four-state postal codes used by the Netherlands, Australia, or Japan, this format is a numeric barcode built from a defined set of bar/space patterns representing digits, designed to be printed on envelopes and parcels for machine sortation within the Korean postal network.

It's a niche, country-specific symbology — you'll rarely encounter it outside of mail sent through Korea's domestic postal system, but for businesses or logistics providers handling Korean mail volume, encoding it correctly with a reliable korean postal authority code generator is what allows automated equipment to route pieces without manual address reading. Because so few tools support it, most senders reach for a general-purpose barcode generator rather than a dedicated postal application whenever they need to produce one of these codes for a mailing project.

Like other postal barcode formats around the world, it exists because manual address reading doesn't scale to national mail volumes. A machine-readable numeric pattern lets sortation equipment move a piece through the correct chute in a fraction of a second, something a human sorter simply cannot match at the throughput a national postal service requires.

How the Code Encodes Data

The Korean Postal Authority Code encodes a numeric postal routing string — typically derived from the destination postal code — into a series of bars representing each digit according to the symbology's defined pattern table. As with most single-purpose postal barcodes, the input is strictly numeric, and the barcode is meant to be read by fixed sortation equipment rather than general-purpose handheld scanners, so its bar widths and spacing follow the postal authority's own technical specification rather than a general commercial barcode standard.

Each digit maps to a fixed bar-and-space pattern, and the digits are laid out sequentially from left to right with defined start and stop markers framing the data so a scanner can locate where the routing information begins and ends. There is no user-configurable structure beyond the digits themselves — the symbology's job is narrow and mechanical: take a postal routing number and render it as a pattern a sorting machine can read at speed, nothing more.

Technical Specifications

The Korean Postal Authority Code accepts numeric input only — no letters, punctuation, or symbols. The exact digit length corresponds to the postal routing data you're encoding, generally tied to the destination postal code format used by Korea Post. As a linear (1D) symbology, it renders as a single row of bars and spaces rather than a 2D grid, and it carries no error-correction layer the way 2D codes like QR or Data Matrix do; instead, reliability comes from consistent print quality and adherence to the postal authority's bar-width tolerances. There is no user-facing checksum step to manage in Barcode Mint — you supply the routing digits, and the generator renders the corresponding bar pattern directly.

Where the Korean Postal Authority Code Is Used

This symbology has a narrow, specific application:

• Domestic Korean mail sortation — printed on envelopes and parcels handled within Korea Post's automated processing centers.
• Bulk mail and direct marketing — Korean businesses sending large mail volumes use postal barcodes to speed up sortation and potentially reduce processing costs.
• Logistics and fulfillment — companies shipping through Korea's domestic postal network may need this barcode on labels destined for postal (rather than private courier) delivery.
• Mail-merge and print shops — service bureaus producing large mailing runs for Korean clients sometimes need to generate this barcode alongside address data pulled from a customer database.

How to Create a Korean Postal Authority Code in Barcode Mint

Select Korean Postal Authority Code from the Postal Code group in the symbology list. Enter the numeric postal routing data for your destination — the live preview updates as you type so you can confirm the bar pattern before export. From there:

• Adjust bar width and height to fit the space allotted on your envelope or label template.
• Set the margin/quiet zone generously around the code, since fixed sortation equipment relies on clean white space to locate the barcode boundaries.
• Keep the barcode in solid black on a light background for maximum contrast, since postal sortation scanners are tuned for high-contrast printing rather than color variants.
• Export as PNG or SVG for direct use in a mail-merge or label design tool, or use Copy for quick placement.
• Use the bulk CSV → ZIP/PDF tool to generate a unique barcode for every address in a mailing list from a single spreadsheet upload.
• Call the REST API — /barcode?type=koreapost&data=YOURPOSTALDATA — to generate these barcodes programmatically from a mailing or shipping system.

Print and Scan Best Practices

Because this barcode is read by fixed postal sortation equipment, printing consistency matters:

• Place the barcode in the location specified by Korea Post's mailing guidelines relative to the address block.
• Print in solid black ink on non-glossy, light-colored stock to avoid glare or low contrast interfering with optical readers.
• Verify your postal routing digits against the actual destination postal code before a large mail run, since a barcode-only routing error can misdirect the piece.
• Maintain a clear quiet zone around the barcode, free of stamps, other printed marks, or overlapping text.
• Print and test a sample piece at actual size before a full production run to confirm the barcode is legible to the equipment you expect to process it.
• Avoid resizing the barcode disproportionately (stretching width without height, or vice versa) since that distorts the bar-width ratios the scanner depends on to distinguish one digit's pattern from another.

Korean Postal Authority Code vs Other Postal Barcodes

Most national postal services have settled on four-state barcode formats — patterns using bars of varying height (ascender, descender, tracker, full bar) — for their own routing codes, as seen in Australia Post's 4-State Customer Code, Japan Post's 4-State code, and Royal Mail's RM4SCC. The Korean Postal Authority Code instead follows a more traditional bar/space linear structure, closer in spirit to the numeric symbologies used by Deutsche Post's Identcode and Leitcode than to its four-state postal peers. None of these postal formats are interchangeable: each is tied to a specific national postal authority's sortation equipment and technical specification, so a barcode generated for use within Korea Post's network won't be recognized or processed correctly by a different country's mail sorting system. If you're shipping internationally and need multiple countries' postal barcodes, you'll generate each one separately using its own dedicated symbology rather than a single universal postal code.

Common uses

• Domestic South Korean mail sortation through Korea Post processing centers
• Bulk business mail and direct marketing sent within Korea
• Logistics labels for parcels shipped through Korea's postal network
• Mail-merge systems generating postal routing barcodes for Korean addresses
• Print shops and service bureaus producing large Korean mailing runs

Frequently asked questions

Related barcode types

Browse all 106 barcode & QR types →