What size should a printed QR code be?

The short answer

For something held in the hand — a business card, table tent or product label — print the QR code at least 2 × 2 cm (about 0.8 in). For anything scanned from further away, use the distance rule below. Bigger is almost always safer than smaller.

The 10:1 distance rule

A reliable rule of thumb is that the code's width should be about one tenth of the scanning distance. Someone standing 1 metre from a poster needs a code roughly 10 cm wide; a banner read from 5 metres away needs a code around 50 cm wide.

Business card / label (10–20 cm away): 2–3 cm
Flyer or menu (20–40 cm): 3–4 cm
Poster on a wall (1–2 m): 10–20 cm
Window sign or banner (3–5 m): 30–50 cm

Denser codes need more room

A QR code is a grid of small squares called modules. The more data you encode, the more modules it has, and the smaller each one becomes at a given print size. A short link produces a simple, easy-to-scan code; a long URL full of tracking parameters, or a contact card with many fields, produces a dense one. If you must print small, shorten the content first — or use a dynamic code, which always encodes a short redirect link.

Keep the quiet zone

Scanners need an empty margin around the code — at least four modules wide on every side. Designers often crop this away to save space or place the code tight against a border or photo, and it is one of the most common reasons printed codes fail. Our generator adds the margin automatically; don't trim it off in your layout software.

Contrast, colour and logos

Use a dark code on a light background. Coloured codes work well as long as the contrast stays strong; light-on-dark (inverted) codes and pale colours such as yellow are not read by some older scanner apps.

A logo in the centre is fine because QR codes contain error correction, but the logo hides part of the data. Keep it small (no more than about a fifth of the code's width) and choose a higher error-correction level when you add one.

Always test before a print run

Print one proof at the real size, on the real paper, and scan it with two or three different phones from the distance people will actually stand. You can also upload your final artwork to the QR checker, which reports quiet zone, contrast and a safe minimum print size. Then create your code with the QRinst generator.