Passport photo sizes by country
The most commonly requested specifications:
| Country / region | Size | At 300 DPI | Background |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 2 × 2 in (51 × 51mm) | 600 × 600 px | Plain white or off-white |
| United Kingdom | 35 × 45mm | 413 × 531 px | Plain light grey or cream |
| Schengen / EU | 35 × 45mm | 413 × 531 px | Plain light grey |
| India | 2 × 2 in (51 × 51mm) | 600 × 600 px | Plain white |
| Canada | 50 × 70mm | 591 × 827 px | Plain white |
| Australia | 35 × 45mm | 413 × 531 px | Plain, light colour |
| China | 33 × 48mm | 390 × 567 px | Plain white |
| Japan | 35 × 45mm | 413 × 531 px | Plain white or light blue |
Getting the head size and position right
Dimensions are only half the specification, and head proportion is where most rejections come from. The rules are strict and vary:
For US passports, the head must measure between 1 and 1 3/8 inches (25–35mm) from chin to crown, and the eyes should sit between 1 1/8 and 1 3/8 inches from the bottom of the photo. For UK and Schengen photos, the face from chin to crown must occupy 29–34mm of the 45mm height — roughly 70–80% of the frame.
Use the crop control to frame this before resizing: centre the face horizontally, leave a small margin above the head, and check the chin-to-crown proportion against the requirement for your country.
The requirements that are not about size
A correctly sized photo still gets rejected if it fails the photographic rules, which are consistent across most countries:
- Neutral expression, mouth closed, both eyes open and clearly visible.
- Face square to the camera — no tilt, no three-quarter angle.
- Even lighting with no shadows on the face or behind the head, and no flash reflection off glasses.
- Plain, uniform background with no pattern, furniture or doorframe visible.
- No sunglasses or tinted lenses. Ordinary glasses are increasingly disallowed too — the US has banned them outright since 2016.
- Head coverings only for religious reasons, and the full face must remain visible.
- Taken recently, usually within the last six months.
Print DPI and why it matters
If you are printing the photo, resolution matters as much as dimensions. Most authorities require at least 300 DPI, and some ask for 600. A 35×45mm photo at 300 DPI is 413×531 pixels; at 600 DPI it is 827×1063.
The presets here use 300 DPI, which satisfies the common case. If your embassy specifies 600 DPI, double the pixel dimensions — and make sure your source photo genuinely has that much detail, since upscaling a small image adds pixels without adding information.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I use this photo for an official application?
- The tool produces a correctly sized, correctly encoded file. Whether it is accepted depends on the photographic requirements — head proportion, background, lighting, expression — which are about how the photo was taken, not how it was resized. Check your authority's published specification before submitting.
- Is my photo uploaded anywhere?
- No. All processing happens in your browser via the Canvas API. The photo never crosses the network, and the tool keeps working if you disconnect after the page loads.
- Can it change the background to white?
- Not currently — this tool handles cropping, resizing, rotation and compression. Background replacement needs subject segmentation, which is a different kind of tool. Photograph against a plain wall in even light instead.
- What file size do passport uploads usually allow?
- Commonly between 20KB and 200KB, depending on the portal. Set your dimensions here first, then use the target-size compressor if the form specifies a byte limit.