Passport photo sizes by country, and the rules that get photos rejected

Two print sizes, many digital sizes

Almost every country prints passport photos at one of two sizes. The 35 by 45 mm photo is used across Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, India, Pakistan, Australia and most of the world. The 2 by 2 inch (51 by 51 mm) square photo is used by the United States and a few countries that copy its forms. A handful of places have their own: China’s printed visa photo is 33 by 48 mm, and Qatar’s Hayya portal asks for a 3 by 4 proportion.

Print size tells you less than it used to, because most applications are now made online, and an online form wants a digital photo measured in pixels and kilobytes. The ratios are the same, so a photo cropped to 35 by 45 mm can be saved at any pixel size with that proportion, but each portal has its own range and its own limit on the file size.

The table gives the figures as each issuing office publishes them. Where a cell says “any”, the office has not set a figure.

Document	Print size	Digital size	File limit	Head height	Background
US passport	2 × 2 in	600 × 600 px	not set	25–35 mm (1 to 1⅜ in)	plain white or off-white
US visa (DS-160)	2 × 2 in	600 to 1,200 px square	240 KB	50–69% of the height	plain white or off-white
UK passport	35 × 45 mm	413 × 531 px	not set	29–34 mm	plain cream or light grey
Schengen visa	35 × 45 mm	413 × 531 px	set by each consulate	70–80% of the height	plain, light-coloured
Canada visa	35 × 45 mm	413 × 531 px	set by the portal	31–36 mm	plain white or light
China visa (online)	33 × 48 mm	354–420 × 472–560 px	40–120 KB	28–33 mm	white
Saudi eVisa	digital only	200 × 200 px	5–100 KB	70–80% of the height	white, no shadows
Qatar Hayya	30 × 40 mm	720 × 960 px or more	2 MB	70–80% of the height	plain white or light grey
Indian passport	35 × 45 mm	630 × 810 px	250 KB at some missions	80–85% of the height	white

Sources: the US Department of State, GOV.UK, the European Commission’s Schengen visa page, IRCC, the Chinese embassy’s visa photo requirements, the Visit Saudi eVisa portal, the Hayya photo guideline and India’s Ministry of External Affairs, each linked from the matching page of the passport photo maker, with the date it was last checked.

The head-height rule rejects more photos than anything else

Every office specifies how much of the photo the head should fill, measured from the chin to the top of the hair, and this is the rule most people have never heard of. The US wants the head to be between 1 inch and 1⅜ inches tall in a 2 inch photo, which is half to two thirds of the height. The UK wants 29 to 34 mm of the 45. India wants the face to fill four fifths of the frame.

The common failure is a head that is too small. The photo was taken from two metres away, the whole upper body is in it, and when it is cropped to 35 by 45 mm the head is 20 mm tall. A good photo maker crops to the head rule rather than to the whole picture: it finds the face, measures the head and sets the crop so the head lands in the middle of the allowed range, with the eyes where the office wants them. If the original photo was taken too close and the top of the hair is cut off, no crop can fix it; take it again with some space above the head.

Background: pale, plain and without shadows

“White” in the rules means a plain pale surface without pattern, texture or shadows. Off-white, cream and light grey are accepted by almost every office (the UK actually prefers cream or light grey to pure white, so that pale hair still has an edge). The things that fail are shadows on the wall behind the head, a door frame or a picture edge in the shot, and a dark or coloured wall.

The practical fix is distance and light. Stand two or three steps in front of the wall so that your shadow falls on the floor, not on the wall, and face a window in daylight so the light is even on both sides of the face. Flash from the phone throws a hard shadow behind you and reflects in glasses; turn it off.

Do not replace the background with software for a passport or a visa. The US, the UK, Canada, India and the Schengen rules all say the photo must not be altered, and examiners recognise the cut-out look around hair. Job applications, school forms and exam portals are different: they want a plain background and do not care how you got it, so for those the passport-size photo page offers a white or blue background.

Expression, glasses and what to wear

The rules here are nearly universal:

• Neutral expression, mouth closed, both eyes open and looking at the camera. The US accepts a natural smile with the mouth closed; most others ask for no smile.
• No glasses in the US since 2016 and for an Indian passport. The UK, the Schengen states and Canada allow glasses if the eyes are clearly visible, with no tinted lenses, no glare and no thick frames that hide the eyes. When in doubt, take them off.
• No head covering unless it is worn for religious or medical reasons, and then the face must be fully visible from the forehead to the chin, with both edges of the face showing. Saudi Arabia’s eVisa and Qatar’s Hayya ask for both ears and cheeks to be visible.
• No uniform, and nothing white against a white wall, because the shoulders then disappear.
• Head straight, not tilted, with the face centred. The camera should be at eye level, not above or below.

How recent the photo must be

Office	Taken within
UK passport	1 month
US, Canada, China, Schengen states, Saudi eVisa	6 months
Qatar Hayya	12 months

Offices compare the photo with you. A photo within the limit that no longer looks like you, because of a beard, glasses or a big change in weight, is refused on the spot, so when in doubt take a fresh one.

Digital photos: pixels, kilobytes and the trap between them

Online portals set two kinds of limit, and they pull in opposite directions. The pixel range says how big the picture must be; the file size says how many kilobytes it may take. A 1,200 by 1,200 pixel photo saved at high quality is 500 KB or more, so it fails a 240 KB limit; saving it at a low quality to fit shows compression blocks on the face, which examiners also reject.

The way through is to pick a size in the middle of the pixel range and a moderate quality. For the US DS-160, 600 by 600 pixels at JPEG quality 85 is around 60 to 100 KB, well inside 240 KB and sharp. For China’s 40 to 120 KB window, 390 by 520 pixels at quality 85 lands in the middle. The Saudi eVisa’s 200 by 200 pixels is small enough that almost any quality fits under 100 KB; the trap there is the 5 KB minimum, which a very plain photo at low quality can fall under.

The passport photo maker on this site saves each document at its own figures, in the middle of the pixel range and under the file limit, and shows the final size before you download. If a portal rejects the file anyway, read its message: it usually names which of the two limits failed.

Printing at home or at a shop

If you need prints, lay several copies on one sheet. A 10 by 15 cm print (the standard 4 by 6 inch photo print) holds eight 35 by 45 mm photos or four 2 by 2 inch ones, and any photo kiosk or pharmacy prints that size for a few cents. Print on photo paper, never on plain paper, and cut with a ruler and a blade rather than scissors. The photo maker lays the sheet out for you with faint cutting lines.

Check the print before you leave the shop: the colours should be natural, with no colour cast from the paper, and the head should measure within the range with a ruler. A print that is a little too dark is a common reason for rejection, because kiosks often print darker than the screen showed.