QR Codes on Business Cards: Do's, Don'ts, and Sizing

Putting a QR code on a business card comes down to four decisions: what the code should do (pick exactly one thing), how big to print it (2 x 2 cm minimum), where it goes (back center, usually), and whether it is static or dynamic (dynamic, if your details ever change). Get those four right and the rest is cosmetics.

Most cards get at least one of them wrong, and the failures are usually physical rather than digital: glare, size, or a code that died with a free trial. Here is the full checklist.

One card, one code, one job. The realistic options:

• Save my contact. The classic. Scanning offers your details for the person's address book. Use a dynamic contact code rather than a data-stuffed static one; we covered why density kills contact codes in detail.
• Open my LinkedIn. Right choice when the goal is a connection rather than a phone number. A LinkedIn QR code skips the "how do you spell your name again" search.
• See my work. Portfolio or case studies, best for designers, photographers, agencies.
• Book a call. A scheduling page. For sales roles this beats every other option, because it converts the handshake into a meeting while you are still in the room.

Resist the urge to offer all four. A code that opens a small hub page can list secondary links; the printed card itself should make one promise.

• Print at 2 x 2 cm or larger. That is the floor for a short-link code; a lean static contact card (name, phone, email) wants about 3 x 3 cm, and a full static card with every field needs 4 cm or more, which is your cue to not do that. If the design cannot spare 2 cm, the design has too much in it.
• Keep the quiet zone. The white margin around the code is part of the spec, not wasted space. Designers love to crop it; scanners do not.
• Dark code on a light background. High contrast, and avoid inverting the colors. Light-on-dark codes fail on a surprising number of phones.
• Choose matte over glossy. Glossy lamination turns overhead lighting into glare, and glare is the number one physical scan killer on cards. If the brand demands gloss, foil or embossing, keep those finishes off the code area entirely and print the code 10 to 25 percent larger to compensate.
• Export as SVG and hand the vector to the printer. A scaled-up PNG gets soft edges, and soft module edges cost scan reliability.
• Add a caption. Three or four words under the code: "Scan to save my contact." Instructions measurably increase scans because people know what they are agreeing to.
• Print the short URL under the code too. Some people will not scan, and a typed fallback keeps them. This is where a branded link earns its place: qr.yourname.com/card reads like you, while a random-character link reads like a phishing test.
• Test the printed proof, not the screen preview. Both an iPhone and an Android, at arm's length, in bad light, and if you can, one older budget phone. The newest flagship scanning your proof proves the least.

• Don't encode your entire contact card statically. Every field makes the pattern denser and the scan flakier at card size. Short-link codes stay chunky.
• Don't place the code across a fold or near the trim edge. Folds distort the pattern, trim tolerances eat quiet zones, and rounded card corners can clip the margin if the code sits too close to them.
• Don't put it on textured, dark, or busy backgrounds. Kraft paper and foil finishes look great and scan terribly.
• Don't use a code from a tool with an expiring free trial. The industry's ugliest trick: the code works at the print proof stage and dies weeks later, on a card you handed to a hundred people. Before printing, confirm the code never expires and has no scan cap. On MetricQR, free codes do not expire, full stop.
• Don't print a code you cannot edit. People change jobs and portfolios move. A trackable code keeps the printed card useful years later, and as a bonus tells you whether your cards actually get scanned or just filed.

The sizing rule is not superstition; it comes from a ratio. A QR code scans comfortably at a distance of roughly ten times its width. A business card gets scanned in someone's hand, at 20 to 25 cm from their face, and 20 cm divided by ten is a 2 cm code. Shrink the code to 1.2 cm and you are asking people to hold your card 12 cm from their nose, which nobody does; they hold it at normal reading distance, the camera sees a smaller pattern than it needs, and the scan hunts or fails.

The same ratio explains why the identical code that struggles on a card works fine on a poster: more distance, but proportionally more size.

The convention is back center, code plus caption, front kept clean for name and role. Break the convention only when scanning is the whole point of the card: a recruiter at a career fair or a founder at a demo day can justify front placement, sized generously, with the caption doing the selling.

Corner placement on the front as a small afterthought is the worst of both: too small to scan comfortably, prominent enough to clutter.

If you are unsure what to link, this mapping covers most cases: sales and consulting link a booking page, creative roles link the portfolio, job seekers and networkers link LinkedIn, and everyone else links a contact card. All of them work as business card codes; the difference is what the person holding your card is most likely to want the day after they met you.

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Ready to print? Create the code free, size it at 2 x 2 cm, and scan the proof before the run. Your future self, two job titles later, will be glad it is editable.