How to Read a Nike Football Shirt Product Code

Almost every Nike football shirt made since the early 2000s carries a small printed tag with a number on it. Most people never look at it. It is the single most useful thing on the shirt, because it tells you which garment you are holding, what Nike called the colour, and roughly when it was made.

We read that tag on every Nike shirt before it goes online. This guide explains what the number means, how it has changed over the years, and how to use it when you are buying a shirt from someone you do not know. All the examples below come from labels on shirts that have passed through our own hands.

Where to find the code on a Nike shirt

The product code is not on the big multilingual washing label. It sits on a separate, smaller satin tag stitched underneath or behind it. On most shirts from the 2000s and 2010s you will find that stack of labels in the left side seam, near the bottom hem. Turn the shirt inside out, follow the seam up from the hem, and you will feel the labels before you see them. On some later shirts the labels moved to the centre of the hem, and on a few they sit inside the collar.

The small tag usually shows three things: the size letter, the product code, and a twelve digit barcode number.

What the number actually means

From roughly 2007 onwards, Nike codes follow one pattern:

419877-488

• 419877 is the style number. It identifies the garment itself: which club, which season, which version. A long sleeve version, a player issue version and a goalkeeper shirt from the same kit almost always have their own style numbers.
• 488 is the colour code. It tells you which colourway of that style you have.

So two shirts that look identical apart from the colour will share the first six digits and differ in the last three. We have had an FC Barcelona 2011-12 home shirt with 419877-488 and another version of the same kit with 419877-486 in stock at the same time.

Versions of one kit usually sit next to each other in the numbering, which is a useful thing to recognise. The FC Barcelona 2012-13 home shirt is 478325-410 in short sleeve and 478324-410 in long sleeve, one digit apart. The 2013-14 home shirt is 532825-411 and the third shirt from the same season is 532824-013. If you see two codes that differ by a single digit, you are almost certainly looking at two variants of the same kit rather than two unrelated shirts.

The three digit colour code

The first of the three digits sets the colour family. It describes the shirt as Nike catalogued it, which is not always what you would call it yourself. These are examples from shirts we have listed:

This is a quick sanity check rather than proof of anything. If a seller lists a bright orange shirt and the code ends in 411, something does not line up.

Dating a Nike shirt by its style number

This is where the code becomes really useful. Nike hands out style numbers in roughly ascending order, so the first six digits tell you the era of the shirt even when you know nothing else about it. Here is what we see across our own listings:

Two things to keep in mind. The number reflects when the garment entered production, not when it was worn, so a kit used for two seasons keeps one style number. And the ranges overlap at the edges, because Nike does not reset the counter neatly in July. Treat it as a window of a season or two, not a date stamp.

Before 2007: two numbers and no colour code

Older Nike shirts work differently, and this is where a lot of confusion starts. On shirts from roughly 2002 to 2006 the tag often carries two separate numbers stacked on top of each other, and no hyphenated colour code at all.

On that Inter Milan shirt, 118775 is the style number and F41205CRT is a production code identifying the factory run. A third number, printed sideways on the care label as IM#126539, refers to the material. Some shirts from this era show only the letter code: a Manchester United 2002-04 home shirt we listed carries F21003DHA and nothing else.

The six digit style numbers from this period cluster tightly by season, which makes them just as useful for dating:

• 112xxx for 2003-04: 112586 FC Barcelona home, 112715 Arsenal goalkeeper, 112738 Paris Saint-Germain home
• 116xxx to 119xxx for 2004 to 2006: 116606 Netherlands home, 116612 Portugal home, 117622 Turkey home, 118835 Manchester United home, 118861 FC Barcelona home

Go back further and the code disappears entirely. Nike Premier era shirts from the mid and late 1990s often carry nothing but a size and a composition. A 1996 Arsenal shirt with no product code is completely normal and is not a warning sign.

2019 onwards: two letters up front

Around 2019 Nike switched to two letters followed by four digits. The colour code stayed exactly the same. An FC Barcelona 2019-20 away shirt reads AJ5531-728, and a 2021-22 home shirt reads CV7891-428.

This is a useful shortcut on its own. If a seller describes a shirt as being from 2010 and the tag starts with two letters, the description and the shirt do not agree.

Worked examples

Codes from shirts we have listed, matched to the shirt they belong to. If you have arrived here after typing a bare number into Google, this is probably the table you wanted.

How to use the code when you are buying

1. Ask for a photo of the small tag, not just the big care label. Any serious seller will have one or will take one.
2. Search the full code in quotation marks. Genuine codes turn up on retailer archives, old listings and kit databases, and they should return the club and season the seller claims.
3. Check the first digit of the colour code against the shirt in front of you.
4. Check that the era of the number matches the era of the kit, using the tables above.
5. Check that the code is not doing double duty. A handful of codes get copied onto large batches of counterfeits, so a code that returns a completely different club is the clearest warning you will get.

One caveat: a matching code is not proof of authenticity. Counterfeiters print real codes on fake tags, and they have got better at it. What the code gives you is consistency. It confirms the shirt, the colourway and the era all tell the same story, and it flags the ones that do not. Weigh it alongside the crest quality, the stitching, the fabric and the print. Our guide on how to spot an authentic Nike football shirt walks through those other checks in order.

What the code will not tell you

The product code says nothing about size, which is printed separately on the same tag and, more importantly, means very different things in different years. It will not always tell you whether you have a fan version or a player issue, since some kits used separate style numbers for the two and others did not. And it says nothing at all about whether a shirt was ever worn on a pitch.

Common questions

Where is the product code on a Nike shirt?

On a small satin tag behind the main washing label, usually in the left side seam near the hem.

What do the last three digits of a Nike code mean?

They are the colour code. The first of the three gives the colour family, for example 4 for blue and 6 for red.

My 1990s Nike shirt has no product code. Is that a problem?

No. Many Nike shirts from the mid and late 1990s carry only a size and a composition.

Quick reference

• 1995 to 2001: often no product code at all
• 2002 to 2006: a six digit style number, sometimes with a letter production code above it, no colour code
• 2007 to 2018: six digits, a hyphen, then a three digit colour code
• 2019 onwards: two letters, four digits, a hyphen, then the colour code

You can browse every Nike shirt we have listed in our Nike collection.

Because sizing moved so much between 1995 and 2015, we also measure every shirt flat and publish the length and width rather than relying on the letter on the tag. Our measurements guide explains how to use those. Each shirt is a single original piece, so once it is gone it is gone.