Scanner Price Accuracy Code: Get the Item Free in Canada

The shelf said $6.99. The register said $8.49. In most of Canada that item is free. The Scanner Price Accuracy Code has been running since June 2002, more than 7,000 stores have signed it, and it says a participating retailer owes you the item when the correct price is $10 or less, or $10 off when the item costs more. Quebec runs its own version with a $15 limit, and there it’s a legal requirement rather than a promise. The catch is that you have to ask, and hardly anyone does.

What is the Scanner Price Accuracy Code?

It’s a voluntary industry code, in force since June 2002, that gives you a free item when a participating store scans something higher than its shelf or advertised price. Which remedy you get depends on the correct price: $10 or less and the item is yours, more than $10 and you get $10 off. The Retail Council of Canada (opens in a new tab) administers it, and the code’s own name for the remedy is the free item policy.

It was written by the Retail Council, the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers and the Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada, and the Competition Bureau endorsed it (opens in a new tab). The Bureau is careful about why the code exists at all: no specific law governs the accuracy of a scanned price, though an overcharge can still breach the Competition Act where a store charges more than the advertised price.

The signatories cover most of the names on a Canadian main street. Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart Canada, Costco, Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Rona, Shoppers Drug Mart, Giant Tiger and Best Buy are all in it, alongside a long tail of independent grocers and pharmacies.

How to tell whether your store is in

The code requires a participating retailer to post a notice at every store entrance and a second one at every checkout. A sticker by the register is the quickest confirmation you’ll get while you’re standing there.

One fussy detail, because the sources disagree with each other: the code’s own clause puts the free item line at $10 or less, while the Retail Council’s consumer FAQ and the Competition Bureau both describe it as less than $10. The gap is a single item priced at exactly ten dollars.

Why is Quebec’s rule different, and stronger?

Quebec is excluded from the national code, because the province regulates scanner accuracy itself. Under the provincial Price Accuracy Policy, a store that skips individual price stickers has to give you the item free when it’s advertised at $15 or less, and take $15 off when it’s advertised higher. That’s an obligation rather than a courtesy.

The threshold moved on May 7, 2025, when Bill 72 raised it from $10 to $15. It applies to the lowest advertised price rather than the one the scanner showed, it covers self-serve checkouts, and the Office de la protection du consommateur (opens in a new tab) confirms you can come back after the fact and still claim it. You pay no tax on an item handed over free.

Quebec often sits outside arrangements like this one, because the province legislates the same ground itself. The contest rules that exclude Quebec work the same way, though those usually cost Quebecers a prize instead of handing them one. Repairs are another example. From October 5, 2026, many new appliances and electronics sold in Quebec come with a legal warranty of free repairs for 3 to 6 years.

When does the free item rule not apply?

A price printed on the item itself puts it outside the code. The code calls these price-ticketed goods, and the category is wider than it sounds: a clearance sticker bearing a number disqualifies the item, and so does a gift card, because its value is printed on the front.

The rest of the exclusions:

Anything not scanned by barcode. Weighed items, loose fruit and vegetables, and anything too small to carry a UPC are all out.

An item on the wrong shelf. To qualify, the product has to match the description on the shelf tag beside it. A bag of coffee somebody set down next to the wrong label is worth what the register says it is.

An expired sale tag with a date on it. If the tag names the dates the price was good for, and they’ve passed, you have no claim.

A tampered barcode or shelf label. An altered tag voids the free item policy.

Products with a legal minimum price. Tobacco is the clearest case. Quebec names milk and grocery-store alcohol too, where the compensation would push them below the legal floor.

Shoes and clothing, in Quebec. The province excludes them outright, for no reason to do with minimum prices. A watch, a life jacket and a hockey helmet don’t count as clothing. Quebec also excludes pharmacy-only medications.

Things you can’t reach. Prescription drugs and behind-the-counter cosmetics sit outside the code, and so do gas stations, which the Retail Council excludes outright.

A correction notice already on the wall. When a store can’t fix a scanning error right away, the code tells it to post a correction notice somewhere obvious, and from the moment that notice goes up the free item policy stops applying to that product. A store that has already owned up to the error owes you nothing more.

One more piece of timing, from the code’s text: the comparison uses the final price on the register screen, after every discount, rebate and coupon has come off, not the price before the promotions.

How do you actually claim it?

Say the name of the rule, at the till, before you pay. That’s most of it. The CBC’s reporting on the code (opens in a new tab) makes the point that nothing here happens automatically, and a cashier who spots the gap will usually just correct the price, which isn’t what you’re owed.

1. Watch the screen, or read the receipt before you leave. Catching it live is easier than noticing in the parking lot and walking back in.
2. Ask for it by name. “That scanned higher than the shelf price, can you apply the Scanner Price Accuracy Code?” In Quebec, “la Politique d’exactitude des prix” is the phrase.
3. Photograph the shelf tag. It’s your evidence, and tags get changed quickly once somebody reports one.
4. Go to customer service if the cashier says no. Front-line staff often haven’t been trained on the code, and the desk usually has.
5. Escalate if the store still refuses. Outside Quebec, the code runs a complaints line at 1-866-499-4599, where a third party decides whether the complaint is a valid scanner accuracy issue, and you’ll need the receipt. In Quebec, the Office de la protection du consommateur takes it.

Stores do refuse, and not rarely. When Radio-Canada’s L’épicerie tested about twenty Quebec grocery stores (in French) (opens in a new tab) in March 2026, it found a gap between the shelf and the register in 60% of them, and in 30% of cases the store refused to apply the policy. The team still walked out with 13 free or discounted items worth $72.39. In the year up to that report the OPC took roughly 1,000 complaints about food products, and close to a quarter of them were about price display or the policy not being honoured.

The $10 is worth less every year

Twenty-four years is a long time for a dollar figure to sit still. Using the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator (opens in a new tab), $10 in June 2002 has the buying power of $17.00 in August 2026. The free item ceiling covers a much thinner slice of a grocery cart than it did when the code was written, and it has never been raised.

Quebec’s move to $15 in May 2025 was the first change either regime has made, and it still leaves the province short of what $10 bought in 2002. So it’s worth using more often than the code’s authors would have expected.

What to do with the money you get back

Eight dollars of pasta sauce isn’t a savings plan. What it does is give you a reason to look at the till, and the grocery bill is one of the biggest lines in a Canadian household budget. Our look at what groceries actually cost a Canadian household puts numbers on it.

That’s the part Lodavo is built for. It’s a free Canadian app that gives you something to look forward to for keeping money saved. You connect the Canadian bank account you already use, read-only, and every $25 sitting in it earns you a ticket in that week’s draw. Someone wins at least $100 every week and the top prize is $10,000. If you enjoy getting something for nothing at the checkout, this is the same feeling once a week.

Check the receipt

It’s one of the few consumer rules in Canada where the store hands you money back on the spot, and it has been sitting in plain sight since 2002. It costs nothing to watch the screen while the groceries go through, and one mispriced jar is worth more than the few seconds it takes.

Ready to make saving more fun? Download Lodavo free on the Apple App Store (opens in a new tab) or Google Play Store (opens in a new tab) and start earning tickets for the weekly draw.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.