Passport Photo Size Guide: Exact Dimensions for 40+ Countries

A rejected passport photo does not cost you the photo. It costs you the appointment — and in most countries the application fee is non-refundable.

Passport photo size is the first thing a checker looks at, and it is the thing most people get wrong, usually because they assume there is a single global standard. There isn't. There are three common print formats, a handful of national exceptions, and an entirely separate set of digital rules that only apply when you upload a file instead of handing over a print.

This guide gives you the exact dimensions per country, the pixel and file-size limits for online submission, and the one measurement that rejects more applications than size ever does.

Passport Photo Size: Three Formats Cover Most of the World

Almost every country you will apply to uses one of these.

Format	Millimetres	Inches	Aspect ratio	Used by
35 × 45 mm	35 × 45	1.38 × 1.77	7:9	The UK, Ireland, all 27 EU and Schengen states, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, South Africa — 40+ countries
2 × 2 in	51 × 51	2 × 2	1:1	United States, Philippines, plus US visas, green cards and the DV lottery
50 × 70 mm	50 × 70	1.97 × 2.76	5:7	Canada only
33 × 48 mm	33 × 48	1.30 × 1.89	11:16	China (passport and visa)

The 35 × 45 mm rectangle comes from ICAO Doc 9303, the international standard for machine-readable travel documents. If a country issues a biometric passport and does not have a legacy format of its own, this is almost certainly what it uses.

Two things worth knowing before you print anything.

India no longer uses the 2 × 2 inch square. The Ministry of External Affairs moved to the ICAO 35 × 45 mm format and Passport Seva rejects the old square. This is recent enough that plenty of neighbourhood studios still print the old size by default, so ask for "35 × 45 mm" explicitly and measure the print before you pay.

Canada is genuinely its own thing. 50 × 70 mm is not a rounding of any other format, and a 35 × 45 mm photo scaled up to fit will put the head outside Canada's 31–36 mm chin-to-crown band.

Digital Upload Specs Are a Separate Requirement

If you are applying online, the print dimensions above stop being the operative rule. The portal cares about pixels and kilobytes.

Country	Print size	Digital dimensions	File size	Format
United States	2 × 2 in	600 × 600 to 1200 × 1200 px, square	54 KB – 10 MB	JPG, JPEG or HEIF
United Kingdom	35 × 45 mm	600 × 750 px minimum	50 KB – 10 MB	JPEG or PNG
India	35 × 45 mm	630 × 810 px exactly	20–250 KB (domestic portal); 20–100 KB via consulates and BLS centres	JPEG only
Canada	50 × 70 mm	Print submission	—	—
Australia	35 × 45 mm	Print submission	—	—
Schengen visa	35 × 45 mm	Print; ETIAS will add a digital upload	—	—
China	33 × 48 mm	Varies by consulate	Varies	JPEG

Three details in that table catch people out.

The UK's online route often does not want a file at all — GOV.UK asks for a digital photo code from an approved provider. The UK also wants a light grey or cream background, not the pure white the US and India require, so a photo shot against a white wall can be rejected for being too bright.

India publishes two file-size ceilings depending on where you submit. The domestic Passport Seva portal accepts up to 250 KB; the MEA photograph SOP that consulates and BLS centres abroad follow specifies 20–100 KB. Applying from outside India, aim for the tighter number.

The US minimum of 54 KB is a floor, not a cap. Compressing down to 30 KB to "be safe" fails the upload. Landing inside a range like that is the job our guide to hitting an exact KB target covers.

Head Height Rejects More Photos Than Size Does

Every specification includes a chin-to-crown measurement, and it is the rule people skip. A photo can be exactly 35 × 45 mm and still fail because the face fills 60% of the frame instead of 75%.

Country / document	Frame	Chin to crown	Share of frame
India	35 × 45 mm	36–38 mm	80–85%
Schengen visa	35 × 45 mm	32–36 mm	70–80%
Australia	35 × 45 mm	32–36 mm	71–80%
Japan	35 × 45 mm	31.5–36 mm	70–80%
Canada	50 × 70 mm	31–36 mm	44–51%
United States	2 × 2 in	25–35 mm (1 to 1⅜ in)	49–69%

India's band is the strictest in wide use, and it is why so many applications fail at the counter: a normal head-and-shoulders photo leaves far too much room above the head. Canada's percentage looks low only because the 70 mm frame is tall — the absolute head height matches everyone else's.

The practical version: after cropping, there should be a few millimetres of space above your hair, your chin should sit near the bottom of the frame, and your shoulders should be barely present. If you are unsure whether the head is too small, it is too small.

The 2026 Rule Change: No Retouching, No AI

This is the part that has changed most, and it changes what you should and should not do to the file.

The US State Department now rejects photos showing signs of digital manipulation, with the tightened guidance taking full effect from January 2026. That covers AI generation, beauty filters, background replacement and even small corrections like removing red-eye. Rejection happens at the automated first pass, so there is no one to explain yourself to. India's Passport Seva portal runs comparable checks, and Schengen consulates screen for smoothed skin and reshaped features.

The distinction that matters is between geometry and content:

• Safe: cropping, straightening a tilted photo, resizing to the required pixel dimensions, JPEG compression to fit a file-size range, converting HEIC to JPEG. None of these change what your face looks like.
• Not safe: skin smoothing, blemish removal, teeth or eye whitening, background replacement or blur, "portrait mode," AI upscaling, any beauty or enhancement filter, colour grading.

Worth knowing: phones apply some of this by default. Portrait mode, face enhancement and automatic scene correction all run without you choosing them, and the rules judge the finished image rather than your intent. If your phone has a "natural" or "off" setting for face retouching, turn it on before you shoot.

Where our tools are the wrong choice

We would rather say this plainly than have you fail an application.

Pro Image Edit's crop tool and resizer are the right kind of operation for a passport photo — they change the framing and the pixel dimensions, not your face. The compressor is fine for landing inside a KB range. All three run in your browser, which matters when the file is a photo of your face attached to an identity document.

Our photo filters page is the wrong tool for this job, and so is any background remover, ours or anyone else's. If the background is not acceptable, reshoot against a plain wall rather than editing it. And no browser tool, ours included, can tell you whether a government checker will accept your photo — where an official validator exists, such as the guidance on travel.state.gov, use it before you submit.

Why files this sensitive should never leave your device at all is something we have written about at NoCubical.

A Process That Passes First Time

1. Find the official spec. Use the issuing authority's own page, not a photo vendor's summary. Note four numbers: print size, head height, digital pixel dimensions, file size range.
2. Shoot against a plain wall in daylight. Stand at least 50 cm forward so you cast no shadow. Turn off portrait mode and any face retouching.
3. Convert HEIC to JPEG if the photo came from an iPhone. Most portals reject HEIC outright — the US online renewal is one of the few that accepts it.
4. Crop to the aspect ratio first, 7:9 for 35 × 45 mm, 1:1 for 2 × 2 inches, 5:7 for Canada. Position the crop so the head fills the required share of the height.
5. Resize to the exact pixel dimensions the portal asks for. India wants 630 × 810; the US wants a square between 600 and 1200 px per side.
6. Compress to land inside the file-size range, not below it. Aim for the upper half of the range so you keep detail.
7. Check it at full size against the head-height numbers before you upload. A ruler on a printed copy takes thirty seconds and settles it.

Steps 4 to 6 take about a minute once you have the four numbers from step 1. Almost every rejection traces back to skipping step 1 and assuming last time's size still applies.

Frequently Asked Questions