vCard QR Code Generator

Handing out a paper business card is a dying ritual. People lose them, they pile up in desk drawers, and half of them never make it into anyone's phone. A vCard QR code solves all three problems. Someone scans, taps Add Contact, and your details — name, phone, email, website, address, social handles, even your photo — land directly in their phone's address book. No typing, no OCR, no lost cards.

The vCard format has been the contact-exchange standard since 1995. It is a plain-text representation that every phone, email client, and CRM understands. This generator builds a fully valid vCard string and encodes it into a QR code that any modern camera app recognizes. iOS and Android both prompt "Add to Contacts" on scan, and the user can pick which fields to save.

All the standard fields are supported: full name, phone (multiple types — mobile, work, home), email, website, organization, job title, postal address, and a free-form note. Social media handles fit in the URL field or as custom extensions. The QR code is client-side generated, which means your contact info never touches a server. Download as PNG for email signatures and digital use, or SVG for high-quality print on physical cards, event badges, or door signs. Networking just got two seconds faster.

vCard is defined by RFC 6350 (vCard 4.0) and earlier versions 2.1 and 3.0. The format is a plain-text record that starts with BEGIN:VCARD, lists fields as PROPERTY:VALUE lines, and ends with END:VCARD. Fields include FN (formatted name), N (structured name with last/first/middle), TEL (telephone numbers with type parameters), EMAIL, URL, ADR (address), ORG (organization), TITLE (job title), NOTE, PHOTO (base64-embedded image), and many more.

When encoded in a QR code, the vCard string becomes the payload. Because vCards can be verbose (especially with multiple phones, addresses, and a photo), the resulting QR code is often large — version 10 or higher. Error-correction level M (15%) is a good balance of density and scan reliability. Without an embedded photo, a typical vCard fits in a version 6-8 code; with a photo, it can push into version 20+, which is dense and harder to scan from a distance.

This generator supports both vCard 3.0 (maximum compatibility) and vCard 4.0 (modern features). Most tools accept both, but some older CRM imports still prefer 3.0. Line endings are CRLF as required by the spec. Unicode in names and addresses is encoded in UTF-8. The MECARD format, common in Japan, is an alternative compact format that some older feature phones still use; the tool can output either on request. Test with your target audience's phones before printing large quantities.

Paper business cards get lost and typed-in contact info has typos. Commercial digital business card services work but lock you into an app. A plain vCard QR code is a format every phone already understands — no app required, no subscription, no platform. This generator builds a fully-compliant vCard, encodes it into a scannable QR code client-side (so your contact info never leaves your browser), and gives you PNG and SVG ready for email signatures, business cards, or event badges. Simple, portable, and effective.