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vCard QR Code Generator

Put your whole contact card on a business card, in vCard or the shorter MECARD format.

  • Free, with no account
  • Static — it never expires
  • Encoded on your device

MECARD is shorter and prints smaller. vCard carries more structure.

Name

Not supported by MECARD.

Reach me
Address

Optional, and the most expensive part of the card — a full address can add 60+ characters and push the symbol up several versions.

Keep it short. Every character makes the symbol denser.

No share link here — a URL carrying your name, phone and address would be logged everywhere it travels.

Export

SVG has no resolution at all — it is the right choice for anything that will be printed.

Appearance & encoding

Higher levels survive damage and allow a bigger logo, but make the symbol denser.

The specification requires 4. Below that, decoders often fail to find the symbol at all.

Centre logo

PNG, JPG, SVG or WebP up to 512 KB. The file is read in this tab and never uploaded.

The safe maximum depends on the symbol size, not just the error-correction level — the check below works it out for the code you actually have.

Print readiness

Generate a code to see its minimum printed size.

What is actually encoded

What a contact QR Code contains

A vCard QR Code holds an entire contact record as plain text. Here is the shape of it, with the line breaks that the format requires:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Tanaka;Mei;;;
FN:Mei Tanaka
ORG:Nine Eyes Studio
TEL;TYPE=CELL:+14155550123
EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:mei@example.com
END:VCARD

The N line is the structured name — family name, given name, then three fields for middle name, prefix and suffix. FN is the display name. Splitting them looks redundant until you meet a contacts app that sorts by surname.

A minimalist business card held between two fingers, with a small QR Code printed in the lower right corner
On a business card the symbol is small, so the payload has to be short. This is where MECARD earns its keep.

Why MECARD makes a real difference

The same contact in MECARD is a single line with no headers, no version declaration and no type parameters:

MECARD:N:Tanaka,Mei;ORG:Nine Eyes Studio;TEL:+14155550123;EMAIL:mei@example.com;;

That is around 85 characters against roughly 150 for the vCard. On a business card printed at 20 mm, the difference is often two or three QR versions — which means noticeably larger modules and a code that scans from further away, in worse light, on an older phone. If the card has to be small, this is the single highest-leverage change you can make.

The trade-off

MECARD has no field for job title, and its address is a flat comma-separated list rather than a structured one. Some older contacts apps handle it less gracefully than vCard. For a printed business card the size win almost always wins; for a poster where you have room, use vCard.

Keeping the payload small

ChangeTypical saving
vCard → MECARD30–40% of the whole payload
Drop the postal address50–80 characters
Drop the note fieldHowever long the note is
One phone number instead of two~25 characters
Level Q → level MNo payload change, but a smaller symbol for the same data

Limits worth knowing

  • No photo. An image will not fit in a QR Code, whatever the format allows on paper.
  • Details are frozen at print time. Change jobs and the printed card is wrong — that is true of the printed text too, so it is rarely the deciding factor.
  • Nothing is verified. We do not check that the email exists or the number rings. Scan your own card before you order five hundred.
  • Non-Latin scripts cost more. A name in Chinese or Japanese is encoded as UTF-8 bytes, so each character costs about three times a Latin one. Expect a denser symbol.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

vCard or MECARD — which should I choose?
vCard 3.0 if you want job title and a properly structured address; MECARD if the code has to be small. MECARD is roughly 30–40% shorter for the same details, which often drops the symbol by two or three versions and makes every module visibly bigger on a business card. Both are read natively by iOS and Android.
Will it save straight into Contacts?
On iOS the camera offers “Add to Contacts” directly. On Android the behaviour depends on the scanner — the Google camera shows the details and offers to save. Neither creates a contact without the person confirming, which is the correct behaviour.
My QR Code looks dense and hard to scan. What do I do?
Contact cards carry a lot of text, so the symbol grows. In order of effectiveness: switch to MECARD, drop fields you do not need (the full postal address is usually the biggest single saving), drop from level Q to level M, and only then make the printed code larger. The print size checker tells you what each change buys you.
Can I include a photo or a company logo in the contact?
Technically vCard has a PHOTO field, but a base64 image is tens of kilobytes and a QR Code holds about three. It will not fit. If you want a logo on the code itself, use the centre-logo control in the panel — that is decoration on the symbol, not data inside it.
Why is my phone number reformatted?
Spaces, brackets and dashes are stripped so the number matches the tel: grammar, and a leading + is kept. Store numbers in international form — +14155550123 — so the card works for someone who scans it abroad.
Is my contact information stored anywhere?
No. Everything you type is held in the page's memory and encoded locally. Nothing is uploaded, and this tool deliberately has no share link — a URL carrying your home address and phone number would end up in browser history and in any proxy log along the way.

Keep going

Related tools

Email QR Code A mailto link with recipient, subject, body, cc and bcc. Phone QR Code A tel: link with an E.164 check so it works internationally. URL QR Code A website, a menu, a booking page — encoded directly, with no redirect in between. Print Size Checker Module size in mm, scan distance, export dpi and a verdict you can check.