Barns have been classified by their function, structure, location, or other features. Sometimes the same building falls into multiple categories.

• Apple barn or fruit barn – for the storage of fruit crops
• Bank barn – A multilevel building built into a banking so the upper floor is accessible to a wagon, sometimes accessed by a bridge or ramp.
• Bastle house – a defensive structure to guard against border reivers with accommodation on the lower floor for livestock.
• Bridge barn or covered bridge barn – general terms for barns accessed by a bridge rather than a ramp.
• Boô – A sheep-barn and dwelling in the Netherlands, seasonal or sometimes year round.
• Pennsylvania barn (U.S.) of which there are sub-categories such as standard and sweitzer types. Also known as forebay or porch barns.
• Cantilever barn – a type of log crib barn with cantilevered upper floors which developed in Appalachia (U.S.A.)
• Combination barn – found throughout England, especially in areas of pastoral farming and the standard barn type in America. This general term means the barns were used for both crop storage and as a byre to house animals.^[14]
• Crib barn – Horizontal log structures with up to four cribs (assemblies of crossing timbers) found primarily in the southern U.S.A.
• Drying barns for drying crops in Finland and Sweden are called riihi and ria, respectively.
• New World Dutch Barn – A barn type in the U.S. Also see Dutch barn (U.K.) in Other farm buildings section below.
• Field barn – An outbuilding located in a field further afield than the main cluster of buildings that constitute a farmstead
• New England barn – a common style of barn found in rural New England and in the U.S.
• English barn (U.S.), also called a Yankee or Connecticut barn – A widespread barn type in the U.S.
• Granary – to store grain after it is threshed, some barns contain a room called a granary, some barns like a rice barn blur the line between a barn and granary.
• Gothic arch barn, has profile shaped as a Gothic arch, which became feasible to be formed by laminated members
• Ground stable barn, a barn with space for livestock at ground level
• Housebarn, also called a byre-dwelling – A combined living space and barn, relatively common in old Europe but rare in North America. Also, longhouses were housebarns.
• Pole barn – a simple structure that consists of poles embedded in the ground to support a roof, with or without exterior walls. The pole barn lacks a conventional foundation, thus greatly reducing construction costs. Traditionally used to house livestock, hay or equipment.
• Potato barn or potato house– A semi-subterranean or two story building for storage of potatoes or sweet potatoes.
• Prairie barn – A general term for barns in the Western U.S.
• Rice barn and the related winnowing barn
• Round barn, built in a round shape the term often is generalized to the include polygonal barn and octagonal barn
• Swing beam barn – A rare barn type in part of the U.S. designed for threshing with animals walking around a pole held by a swing beam inside the barn.
• Tobacco barn – for drying of tobacco leaves
• Tithe barn – a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing the tithes — a tenth of the farm's produce which had to be given to the church
• Threshing barn – built with a threshing floor for the processing and storage of cereals, to keep them in dry conditions. Characterised by large double doors in the centre of one side, a smaller one on the other, and storage for cereal harvest or unprocessed on either side. In England the grain was beaten from the crop by flails and then separated from the husks by winnowing between these doors. The design of these typically remained unchanged between the 12th and 19th centuries. The large doors allow for a horse wagon to be driven through; the smaller ones allow for the sorting of sheep and other stock in the spring and summer.^[15]