Passport photo sizes, and why the head height matters more

The two sizes that cover most of the world

Nearly every passport photo request resolves to one of two formats. The United States and the systems built around it want a square 2 × 2 in photo, which is 50.8 mm on each side. Most of the rest of the world, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, India, Australia and Schengen visas in ordinary consular practice, want 35 × 45 mm. If you have been handed a size and nothing else, it is almost certainly one of those two.

The frame is also the easy part. Two photos can both measure exactly 35 × 45 mm, both be sharp, both sit on an acceptable background, and only one of them will get through — because the head inside the frame is the wrong height. Head height varies far more between countries than paper size does, and it is the measurement that quietly fails photos that look fine.

Same paper, a different photo

The clearest illustration sits between two neighbours. The Netherlands and Germany both use 35 × 45 mm. Print one photo, hold it against both rulebooks, and it can only satisfy one of them.

The Dutch government asks for a head 26 to 30 mm from chin to crown, which is 58 to 67 per cent of the 45 mm height, and adds a second measurement nobody expects: a face width of 16 to 20 mm ear to ear (Rijksoverheid). Germany asks for 32 to 36 mm, or 70 to 80 per cent of the same frame.

Those ranges do not overlap. A German-standard photo with a 34 mm head sits 4 mm above the Dutch ceiling. A Dutch-standard photo with a 27 mm head sits 5 mm below the German floor. Nothing about the paper distinguishes them, and no amount of trimming fixes either one, because the head fraction is decided at the moment you crop, long before anything is printed. See head size is the measurement that fails most photos for how to measure it on a photo you already have.

The background rules break apart the same way. France forbids white outright and asks for light grey or light blue; the UK asks for plain cream or light grey, again not white; the Netherlands accepts grey, light blue or white. White is not the default covers that in full.

France measures differently again: 32 to 36 mm chin to crown, excluding hair. On identical paper, the French measurement lands on a different part of your head than the German one. French photos must also come from a professional or an approved ePhoto booth, so it is a number to check against your photographer's output rather than one to hit at home.

What 2 × 2 in actually asks for

A US passport photo is 2 × 2 in, so 50.8 mm square, and the State Department asks for a head of 25 to 35 mm from chin to crown — roughly 49 to 69 per cent of the frame (travel.state.gov). That is a 10 mm window, more than twice the tolerance Germany allows, which is why a US crop is more forgiving than a European one.

It is two constraints, not one. The eyes must also sit 28 to 35 mm from the bottom of the photo, so a head can be the right height and still be placed too low in the square. The US passport photo tool reports both in millimetres.

The US visa upload for form DS-160 uses the same 2 × 2 frame and the same 25–35 mm head, which the State Department expresses as 50 to 69 per cent. The file itself must be square, in colour, and between 600 × 600 and 1200 × 1200 pixels — see the DS-160 photo tool and is a visa photo the same as a passport photo?. Two other US quirks are worth knowing before you shoot: a closed-mouth smile is allowed, which is unusual, and glasses are not accepted at all.

The sizes that are neither

Canada uses 50 × 70 mm, a shape neither of the two main formats resembles, and asks for a head of 31 to 36 mm — just 44 to 51 per cent of the frame, the smallest head fraction in this set. Someone who crops a Canadian photo to the German proportion will produce a head roughly half again too large.

Spain is the strangest of the verified set. Real Decreto 896/2003 specifies 32 × 26 mm against a uniform white background, and does not specify a head height at all. A consular photo sheet instead asks for a photo 30 to 40 mm wide with the head at 50 per cent. The two documents disagree with each other, and the widely repeated "Spain uses 35 × 45 mm" appears in neither of them. The Spain page lays out both, because there is no honest way to collapse them into one number.

Ireland publishes a range rather than a size: anything from 35 × 45 to 38 × 50 mm, four identical prints, and no published head height whatsoever. If a site quotes you a millimetre figure for the Irish head height, it did not get it from the passport service. Ireland does accept selfies for the online application, and bans uniforms, civil and military, including insignia.

Italy states a width and not a height — 35 to 40 mm wide, with the face occupying 70 to 80 per cent. The passport office's software rejects photos automatically, with no operator able to override it, so an out-of-range face is final rather than negotiable.

Mexico publishes 45 × 35 mm, white background, no head height, and the strictest recency rule anywhere in this set: the photo must be no more than 30 days old. Brazil asks for 5 × 5 cm at a consulate abroad; inside Brazil the Federal Police photograph you themselves, and the 5 × 7 cm size that circulates online applies only to children under five.

One number we cannot stand behind: 33 × 48 mm for China circulates on almost every photo site, and we have not been able to confirm it on a page published by a Chinese authority. Treat it as a figure to verify with the consulate handling your application rather than as something verified here. The China page says the same.

Every verified size in one table

Four of these authorities publish no head height at all, which is worth saying out loud: a tool showing a confident green tick against an Irish or Mexican head measurement is showing you a number it invented. The full list of formats sits on the passport photo size hub.

Getting the crop right

Two practical things follow from all of this. First, shoot wider than you think you need. A photo framed tightly at the camera cannot be cropped outwards later, and every one of these rules is easier to satisfy by cutting into a roomy frame than by rescuing a tight one. Second, get the pixels up front: the UK asks for at least 600 × 750 px and a file between 50 KB and 10 MB, Canada for at least 1800 × 1200 px, the US visa for 600 × 600 upwards. Pixels and DPI, without the confusion and when a portal says your file is too big deal with those separately.

Then measure rather than eyeball. Our photo checker crops to any of 82 official formats, reports the head height and eye line in millimetres against the range that authority publishes, and checks sharpness, exposure, lighting, background and resolution. When it prints, it writes the real physical density into the file, so a 4 × 6 sheet comes out at true size instead of whatever DPI the print software guesses. What it does not do is retouch your face or replace your background — several authorities, the UK and Canada among them, reject software-altered photos in their own published words, which is the subject of the rule that broke every AI passport photo tool.

Nothing here can promise an acceptance; only the passport office decides that. What a correct size and a measured head height do is remove the two most common reasons a photo comes back, which you can read about in order in the reasons passport photos get rejected. Everything on this site runs in your browser with no upload, no account and no limit. There is also a free iOS app, Passport Photo: Photo Maker ID — free to download, with one free export before it asks for Pro. The website is the unlimited one.