Identification
SSCC pallet labels: the custody key for a logistics unit
A pallet with a description on it is a pallet you can argue about. A pallet with an SSCC on it is a pallet every party can name the same way — at pickup, at the cross-dock, at the gate and in the claim six weeks later. The number is not the point. The point is that everyone is talking about the same unit.
What an SSCC is
The Serial Shipping Container Code is an 18-digit number that identifies one logistics unit: a pallet, a carton, a roll cage, a case on a trolley. GS1 UK describes it as four parts.
| Part | Length | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Extension digit | 1 | “Can be any value between 0 and 9” — it exists to increase how many codes a prefix can produce |
| GS1 company prefix | 6–9 | Issued to your company when you join GS1. It is what makes your numbers yours |
| Serial reference | varies | Your own counter. “Each individual pallet requires a different serial number” |
| Check digit | 1 | Calculated from the preceding 17 digits, the same way as for a GTIN or GLN |
The serial reference absorbs whatever the prefix does not use, so the total is always 18. A shorter company prefix leaves room for more pallets; a longer one leaves fewer.
Why it belongs in a custody record
Most handover disputes are not really disagreements about what happened. They are disagreements about which thing it happened to. “Two pallets of the red ones” survives one handover and rarely two. An SSCC gives the unit a name that does not depend on anybody's description, and that name holds from the moment the label is applied until the pallet is broken down.
That is what makes it useful as a custody key rather than as a warehouse convenience. Every event you would want in a chain of custody record — who accepted it, when, in what condition, against which seal — can be attached to the SSCC instead of to a line of prose. When the unit is re-palletized or consolidated, the old SSCC closes and a new one opens, and the relationship between them is itself a recordable event.
The label
GS1 UK sets out a logistics label in three sections, read top to bottom:
- Top — “company name, logo or any other information”. Free format. Carrier marks, destination, handling notes.
- Middle — the SSCC and any extra information, “shown in a human readable form”. This is the section that matters at 6am on a dock with a cracked scanner.
- Lower — “GS1-128 barcodes with the encoded data shown beneath each barcode”.
Two rules are worth committing to memory. The SSCC “can only be shown in a GS1-128 barcode”, and the Application Identifier 00 always represents an SSCC. If you are reading a barcode that starts (00), you are reading a logistics unit identifier and not a product number — which is the single most common confusion on a receiving dock.
Reuse, and why it bites later
SSCCs are not permanent, but they are not casually recyclable either. GS1 UK puts it plainly: you can reuse an SSCC “12 months after they were last allocated, although you will find that each prefix generates so many numbers that there is probably no need to re-use them.” GS1's General Specifications tie the same period to the shipment date, and regulated sectors can be required to leave longer.
The practical advice is the second half of that sentence. A prefix produces far more numbers than most shippers will ever use, and the cost of reusing one early is paid at exactly the wrong moment: during an investigation, when two different pallets from two different years answer to the same number and neither record can be trusted. Do not build a counter that wraps.
Telling the receiver in advance
A label alone tells the receiver what a unit is called, not what is in it. The other half is the message sent ahead. As GS1 UK puts it, information about the logistics unit — “the content, quantities, supplier and date of delivery and the SSCC itself” — would normally be sent by EDI so the receiving party has it in advance. That is what a despatch advice or ASN does, and the SSCC is the field that joins the message to the physical pallet on the dock.
When those two halves agree, receiving is a scan. When they disagree, you have found a real discrepancy early, which is the entire value of sending it: an OS&D report written against an SSCC is a much shorter conversation than one written against a description.
A short checklist
- One SSCC per logistics unit, applied before it leaves your control — not at the gate.
- Never reuse a serial reference inside the period your sector requires. Prefer never.
- Print the number in human readable form as well as in the barcode. Scanners fail.
- Put the label where it can be scanned without moving the pallet, and on more than one face.
- Send the SSCC ahead in the despatch message, and reconcile on receipt rather than on invoice.
- Record the SSCC on the proof of delivery, not just the shipment reference.
- When a unit is rebuilt, close the old SSCC and record the new one against it.
Keeping the record
None of this requires software to be correct, and plenty of operators run it on paper and a spreadsheet. What software changes is how much of it survives contact with a busy week. Cargovate's platform holds a shipment as a sequence of legs and checkpoints, so the events attached to a unit stay attached to it across handovers rather than living in whichever system recorded them.
Last reviewed 2026-09-20