Activities Hobbies 8 Ways to Find Free UPC Codes Quick and Easy Ways to Find UPCs for Sweepstakes Entry Print Hobbies Contests Basics Tips and Tricks Dream Vacations Win Money Win Electronics Home and Garden Lotteries Win Vehicles Jewelry and Clothing Types of Contests Creative Contests Scams Couponing Freebies Frugal Living Fine Arts & Crafts Astrology Card Games & Gambling Cars & Motorcycles Playing Music Learn More By Sandra Grauschopf Sandra Grauschopf Writer University of Maryland Sandra Grauschopf has been working in the contests industry since 2002. She is a passionate sweeper, with tens of thousands of dollars worth of prize wins to her name, and she has been sharing advice about how to be a winner for over a decade. Learn about our Editorial Process Updated on 08/22/21 Have you ever tried to enter a giveaway, but couldn't because you need a UPC code and you don't want to buy the product? Well, there's good news. There are plenty of ways to find UPC codes without making a purchase. For many of these methods, you don't even need to leave your desk. So before you skip sweepstakes because you don't have a UPC on hand, try these free and easy ways to find product codes online. 01 of 08 Use Online Retailers to Find UPC Codes Get free UPC Codes and save money entering sweepstakes. Image (c) Image Source / Getty Images It's amazing what you can buy online these days. Even individual candy bars and boxes of cereal are available to be purchased at Amazon.com or through your favorite grocery store's online delivery service. Many times, these online retailers include the UPCs of the products that they have for sale. So a quick search for the product could give you the codes you need to enter. 02 of 08 Find Free UPC Codes in the Internet UPC Database The Internet UPC Database is a storehouse of free UPC codes for a wide variety of products. It's a useful resource for locating hard-to-find codes. There are some caveats, however: Not all codes are included.Information is entered by volunteers, which means that some codes may be outdated or incorrect.The database may also not include the specially marked products that some giveaways call for. 03 of 08 Use BarCode Lookup to Find Free UPC Codes BarcodeLookup.com is an easy-to-use website that lets you enter a product name and find its UPC code. It stores in-depth information about a variety of items in an international database of products. To use BarcodeLookup.com, you can either enter a product name to get its UPC code, or you can enter a UPC code to find out information like where an item comes from, what its purpose is, and how much various stores charge for it. If you're looking for UPCs for sweepstakes entry, just entering a brand name like "Kelloggs" has a good chance of bringing up the specific item you need to enter. 04 of 08 Use the Internet to Search for Free UPC Codes If a giveaway requires a UPC code for entry, there's a good chance that many people are looking for that code online. That means that other websites and forums might be sharing those much-needed codes with their readers. A simple Google search could bring up sweepstakes websites, blog posts, and other sites that have the codes you need to enter. Start by searching for the name of the giveaway and "UPC" or the name of the product plus "UPC" to find the codes you need. 05 of 08 Ask for Free Codes on Social Media Check out the sweepstakes sponsor on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and you might find the information you need. Some sweepstakes sponsors use giveaways to drive traffic to their social media presences. To entice people to follow their pages, those companies may share codes and UPCs on Facebook or Twitter. You can also use social media to ask your friends or fellow sweepers if they have UPC codes that they can share with you. With so many people on social media, the chances that someone has the item you need in their pantry are pretty good. 06 of 08 Read the Sweepstakes Rules for Free UPC Codes Sweepstakes sponsors cannot require that you purchase an item in order to participate, without violating the laws against private lotteries. So even if a code is required, the sweepstakes rules will usually offer a non-purchase method to get free UPC Codes. Some common ways to get free codes include clicking on a link in the rules or on the entry form, requesting a code by email, or mailing away for a free sweepstakes entry or code. 07 of 08 Get Free UPC Codes at the Grocery Store If all else fails, you can always go to your local grocery store and write down the UPC from the product you need. UPCs are on the outside of the product packages, so you don't need to buy anything to get the codes you need to enter sweepstakes. Use your smartphone to snap a quick picture of the UPCs you need to avoid the chance of making a mistake when you write down the code. 08 of 08 Ask on an Online Question and Answer Site Online Q&A sites like Quora let people ask questions on just about any topic. So if none of these other methods work out for you, you can always try getting an answer there. Simply make a free account and post your question. With luck, a helpful person will be able to share a UPC code with you.