iPhone contact QR code Your contact, as a QR code, on an iPhone.

Your details live in My Card in the Contacts app. Apple’s guide to My Card covers your name, number, address, avatar and Contact Poster. Its page on sharing a contact says to tap the contact, tap Share Contact, choose the fields to share, then “choose a sharing option, such as Messages or Mail”. The other route Apple lists is NameDrop. Neither page mentions a QR code, and we found no QR option anywhere in the Contacts section of the guide for iOS 27 (both read 23 September 2026).

So the built-in ways work only once you already have a way to reach the other person, or they are standing next to you with an iPhone. Share Contact sends through Messages, Mail and the like, which mostly assumes you already have their number or email: the very thing you were trying to swap. For someone with an Android phone, across a table, you need a code, and the phone will not make you one on its own.

There are three ways to get one, plus NameDrop for when both of you have iPhones. The table compares all four.

The grid sizes are not typed in. Both codes come from the same encoder our free tool uses, at the same error-correction level, for a made-up person with a short cardr.co address and five vCard fields. A bigger grid packs more, smaller squares into the same space, and that is what makes a code fussy in poor light. Our QR code size guide turns those grid sizes into millimetres.

The action is called Create QR Code. Apple names it in its notes on what is new in Shortcuts for iOS 26, which say it “can now specify colours and styling”. Earlier versions call it Generate QR Code, which is the name in Apple’s 2023 Education Community walkthrough. The Shortcuts User Guide’s newest edition is for iOS 26, so on iOS 27 the name may have changed again. If one name finds nothing, search for “QR”. (All three pages read 23 September 2026.)

The trick is what you feed it. Given a website address, the code opens the website. Given text in the vCard format, the format phones use for contact cards, it becomes a contact code. Apple’s guide suggests the Text action for fixed text like this.

For step 2, type these lines into the Text action, one per line, with your own details in place of the made-up ones:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:3.0
N:Morgan;Alex;;;
FN:Alex Morgan
ORG:Example Studio Ltd
TITLE:Director
TEL;TYPE=CELL:+44 7700 900123
EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:alex@example.com
END:VCARD

N is the surname, then the first name, separated by a semicolon. FN is the name as it should appear. If a company name has a comma or a semicolon in it, put a backslash in front of it, or the phone will split the name there.

For step 5, Apple’s guide covers running a shortcut from the Action button, which it says iPhone 15 Pro and later models have instead of the Ring/Silent switch. On any iPhone, adding the shortcut to the Home Screen does nearly the same job.

What you end up with is a raw vCard code, with the strengths and limits of one. It works with no signal on either phone, because the details are in the pattern. It also cannot be changed: if you change your number, anyone who photographed the old code still has the old number. Our vCard QR code guide goes into what to cut and why.

Our vCard QR generator takes six fields: full name, company, job title, phone, email and website. It builds a vCard 3.0 from them and draws the QR code on the server, with the same encoder Cardr uses for real passes, at error-correction level M. You can download it as an SVG, which stays sharp at any size. There is no signup, no email and no watermark, and all the fields are optional.

Two things worth knowing. The details are not stored, but they do appear in the page address so that a generated code can be bookmarked, so treat that link like the details themselves. And the result is the same raw vCard code the Shortcut makes, so it cannot be changed after you share it.

To keep it on your iPhone, open the image and save it to Photos, or add it to a Favourites album so you can find it quickly. That is two taps slower than a shortcut on the Action button, and it works on any iPhone without building anything.

Density. For the made-up person above, the five-field vCard encodes to a 53×53 grid; a short link encodes to 29×29. The link stays that size however much the page behind it says. On a bright screen held still, either will scan. On a dim screen, in a dark bar, or from further away, the code with bigger squares is the one that scans first time. The QR code business card guide covers why dense codes fail in poor light.

Updating. A vCard code is fixed the moment it is made. A link can point at a page you edit, so the code people scan next month shows your new number. A contact somebody has already saved is a copy either way: it stays as it was.

Signal. This is where the vCard wins outright. It needs no connection on either phone. A link needs the other person to have signal once, to load the page. In a basement venue or abroad without data, that matters.

What comes back. Neither kind of code tells you it was scanned. A vCard code is a one-way handover. A card page can offer a way for the other person to send their details back.

That last point is where Cardr fits, if it fits you. A Cardr is a link code kept in Apple Wallet on your iPhone. The pass is stored on the phone, so it opens with no signal on your side. The person scanning it lands on cardr.co/yourname, saves you to their contacts with one tap on Save and sends their details back with one more, which puts them in your contact list. They need signal once and nothing installed, and the card is free. If the offline vCard suits you better, the Shortcut or the generator is the right answer, and both are free too.

NameDrop swaps contact cards when you hold two iPhones close together, and it works both ways. It is free and built in. It also stops at iPhone and Apple Watch, needs the phones a few centimetres apart, and shares your name, one number or email and your Contact Poster, but not your company or title. Our NameDrop comparison has the details from Apple’s own pages.

So a contact QR code is really for everyone NameDrop does not reach: people with Android phones, people across a table, and a queue at a stand.

On an iPhone, Apple’s guide says to open Camera, stay in Photo mode, get the code inside the frame and tap the link that appears at the bottom of the screen. There is also a Scan Code control in Control Centre, and on supported models the Camera Control can open the scanner. In the Control Centre scanner, Apple’s tip for a dim room is to tap the torch to add more light.

On Android, it depends on the phone. Google’s Pixel help says the camera “automatically recognises the code and shows a bubble or link on the screen”, with a Scan QR code tile in Quick Settings and Google Lens as other routes. Its advice fits any phone: keep your hand steady, scan somewhere well lit, and “avoid shadows or glare on the code”. Other makers’ camera apps differ; our Android guide covers the rest. (Both pages read 23 September 2026.)

Neither Apple’s page nor Google’s lists contacts among the kinds of code it handles; they talk about websites, apps and tickets. A link code simply opens a web page, which both do. For a vCard code, do what step 6 says and scan your own code with an iPhone and an Android before you depend on it. If you are showing the code on your screen, turn the brightness up. If one scanner struggles, the problem is usually glare or density, not the phone.