Written off as a pandemic novelty, the QR code did the opposite of fading. Payments, packaging and the checkout itself are all moving towards it. Here is what the numbers actually say.
For a while it was fashionable to predict that QR codes would vanish once the world reopened. The menus would go back to paper, the argument went, and the little squares would retreat to the warehouses. The data says otherwise. If anything, the pandemic was the on-ramp, not the destination.
That habit stuck, and where habits go, money follows. The clearest signal is in payments, where the QR code has quietly become one of the world’s default ways to move money at the point of sale.
A figure that large is hard to picture, so it helps to look at where much of it happens. In several fast-growing economies, scanning a code to pay is not a niche option: it is simply how payment works, for street vendors and department stores alike.
India is the standout. Its unified payments system turned the QR code into everyday infrastructure, printed on cards taped to market stalls and glass shopfronts across the country.
In much of the world the question is no longer whether people will scan to pay. They already do, billions of times a month.
The second big shift is quieter and, for anyone selling a physical product, more consequential. The QR code is migrating from posters and table tents onto packaging itself, and shoppers are telling researchers they want it there.
A pack has limited surface area and a printing deadline. A code on that pack does not, because it can lead to as much information as you like, updated whenever you like. Ingredients, provenance, recycling guidance, a how-to video, a re-order link: none of it has to fit on the label or be finalised before the print run.
Businesses have noticed the opportunity, not just the tidiness. A majority now expect the codes to contribute directly to revenue, not merely to convenience.
The most telling development is happening at the till. A global standards initiative known as Sunrise 2027 is preparing retail checkouts to read a two-dimensional code, a QR-style square, in place of or alongside the familiar striped barcode. The same code that rings up the sale can also carry a batch number, an expiry date and a link for the shopper.
That is a profound change of role. For thirty years the barcode did one job at the checkout: identify the product. Its replacement is being designed to do that and be a doorway to the web at the same time. When the code on the pack is also the code the till scans, the line between a product and its digital life effectively disappears.
Yes. Far from fading after the pandemic, scanning became a habit: 89 million Americans scanned a QR code in 2022, up 26% on 2020, and usage has kept growing since.
QR code payments were worth $5.4 trillion worldwide in 2025 and are forecast to pass $8 trillion by 2029.
India is the standout, with 633 million QR codes deployed for payments by the end of 2024, up 126% in around eighteen months, after its unified payments system made scanning to pay everyday infrastructure.
Shoppers want more detail than a label can hold, with 77% saying detailed product information is important when deciding what to buy, and 62% of businesses expect QR-driven initiatives to increase revenue.
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