Free QR code generators in the UK
Free means three different things in this market and they are not interchangeable. One of them is permanent and costs nothing forever. One comes with a limit you will meet. One is a trial that ends and takes your printed material with it. Working out which one you are being offered is the whole job.
The three kinds of free
- A free static code. The web address is stored inside the printed pattern itself. No account, no server, nothing to expire, and no company can switch it off. This is genuinely free forever and several tools give it away with no sign-up. It also cannot ever be changed.
- A free dynamic code with a cap. The pattern encodes a provider’s short address which forwards to your destination. You can change the destination later. Free tiers cap the number of codes, the number of scans, or the number of days.
- A free trial. A dynamic code that works until the trial ends and then stops. This is the one that ruins print runs, because the code works perfectly on the day you send the artwork to the printer.
If you never need to change the destination, take the first and stop reading the pricing pages. Everything below is about the other two. Here is how to tell which kind you already have.
Which free tiers expire, in their own words
All read on 9 August 2026 from each vendor’s own pages, each linked so you can check rather than take our word for it.
QRStuff
Sells in pounds with a GBP option and has a UK-facing pricing page. The Free Suite lists “10 Dynamic QR codes”, “5 Static QR codes” and “30 days QR code expiration”; the paid tiers list “No QR code expiration” with a footnote marker (qrstuff.com pricing). So the free dynamic codes are good for a month. That is fine for a one-week event and wrong for anything printed in quantity.
QR TIGER
Their subscription page calls the free plan “a subscription plan that’s totally free with no expiry” and offers “3 dynamic QR codes with a 500 scan limit each” plus static codes “without limit” (subscription plan management). No expiry by date, then. There is a limit by scans, and their help centre says what it does: “Once this limit is reached, the QR code becomes inactive.” (QR TIGER help centre) Their FAQ adds the paid case: “If your plan expires, it will stop working.” (FAQ) 500 scans is a couple of weeks of a decent poster.
QRCG by Bitly
The pricing page offers “Your first 14 days are on us” (qr-code-generator.com pricing). A dynamic code made in that window is a trial code. This is the one that shows up in complaint after complaint from people who printed first — the detail is on the cancellation page.
Uniqode
Free covers static codes. On trials: “Once your free trial expires, any dynamic QR Codes you created will become inactive.” And on billing: “We currently only offer annual subscription plans.” (uniqode.com pricing) There is no monthly option to soften the decision.
The UK part: VAT
The standard rate of VAT is 20% and applies to “most goods and services” (GOV.UK, VAT rates). Whether a vendor shows it changes the number on your statement by a fifth.
- QRCG shows prices excluding it. The footnote on the pricing page reads “*Value added tax not included” (qr-code-generator.com pricing). The plan prices there are in euros and are inserted by script — they did not render when we read the page, so we are not publishing figures we could not see. The footnote is the point: whatever number you are shown is not the number you pay.
- dynamicqrcodes.co.uk adds it at the end. Their pricing page says “Local taxes (e.g. VAT) applied at checkout” and lists “£19” one-time for a lifetime code and “From £15/mo” for subscriptions (dynamicqrcodes.co.uk pricing). So the £19 is £22.80 on the card, which is our arithmetic rather than their statement.
- QRStuff shows pounds with a currency selector and made no VAT statement we could find on the pricing page.
If you can reclaim VAT this is bookkeeping. If you are a charity, a sole trader below the threshold, or a PCC, it is a real 20% and it belongs in the comparison.
The other UK part: which currency the card is charged in
Several of the larger vendors price in dollars or euros with no UK selector. Two things follow. The pound figure moves with the exchange rate, so a plan that looked affordable in March is a different cost in November. And your card issuer may add a non-sterling transaction fee, typically a few percent, which never appears on any pricing page.
Ask for the price in pounds inclusive of VAT before you commit to anything annual. If a vendor cannot tell you what your card will be charged, that is an answer.
What to check before you print anything
- Static or dynamic. If the tool asked you to make an account, it is probably dynamic and probably rented.
- Is there a scan cap, and what happens at it — does the code stop, or does the counting stop? These are entirely different outcomes for something already on a wall.
- Is there a time limit on the free tier, in days.
- What happens when a paid plan lapses, in the vendor’s own words, on a page you can link to.
- Monthly or annual only, and what notice cancelling needs.
- The price in pounds including VAT.
- Print a short web address beside the code. It costs nothing and it is the difference between a leaflet that degrades and a leaflet that dies.
Honest advice that costs us a customer
For a great many UK jobs the right answer is a free static code pointing at a page you control, and no subscription at all. A menu on your own domain, a donation page, a Google review link, a village hall booking form. If that address is not going to move, a static code is free, permanent, and cannot be taken away by anybody, us included. Several tools produce one with no account.
A dynamic code is worth paying for in one situation: when the destination will change while the printed thing is still in circulation, and reprinting would cost more than the subscription. That is a real situation and it is the reason this product exists. It is not every situation, and a page telling you otherwise would be selling.
Where we fit, stated plainly
We are a UK product and we compete on the two things above: prices are in pounds inclusive of VAT, so the number shown is the number charged. Beyond that, what is specifically ours rather than table stakes: cancelling drops you to the free allowance for new codes while everything already printed carries on resolving; destination history has no delete path for anybody, including us; error correction is raised automatically when you add a logo, and the finished artwork is decoded before you can download it, so a code that will not scan is refused rather than sent to your printer; and a short resolve host is included rather than sold as an add-on, which matters because the host length sets how dense the printed pattern has to be.
The awkward part, since this page is about reading the small print: payments are not switched on yet and accounts are opened by invitation, so nobody can buy this today. A free tier of three codes exists in the plan structure and there is no checkout behind it at the moment.
Next, depending on why you are here: what every vendor says about lapsed plans, getting the artwork right so it scans off paper, or the charity version of this decision.