Passport Size Photo in cm, Inches and Pixels: Every Common Size

Most of the world settled on 35 × 45 mm because it matches the photo area that ICAO Doc 9303, the International Civil Aviation Organization standard for machine-readable passports, was written around. The UK, every Schengen country, India, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and dozens of others print photos at that size, so when a form outside North America and China simply says "passport size photograph", 3.5 × 4.5 cm is the safe reading. In inches it is an awkward 1.38 × 1.77, which is why people in the US rarely recognize it.

The United States is the main exception. The State Department asks for a square 2 × 2 in photo, 51 × 51 mm, used for US passports, visas, green cards and naturalization forms; Indian missions in the US copy it. Canada goes the other way with a large 50 × 70 mm print, and China's visa photo is a narrow 33 × 48 mm, taller and thinner than the European size.

The table lists the sizes you are most likely to meet. For more countries and their background rules side by side, see passport photo requirements by country.

The same European photo appears as 3.5 × 4.5 cm on one form and 4.5 × 3.5 cm on another. Both describe a portrait photo 35 mm wide and 45 mm tall; the second simply lists height first, a habit of several Indian and South Asian forms. There is no landscape passport photo anywhere, so if a form gives two numbers, the larger one is always the height. Typing them into a resize tool in the wrong order is the most common way people end up with a sideways crop.

The 3.5 × 5 cm size is a different photo, not a rounding of the first. Some studios and older forms for local IDs and admissions still use 35 × 50 mm: same width, 5 mm taller. A 35 × 50 mm print will not fit a 45 mm frame on a passport form, so measure the box printed on the form if there is one and go by the number the issuing office states, not by what the studio calls "passport size".

Shape matters as much as size. 35 × 45 mm is a 7:9 ratio, 3.5 × 5 cm is 7:10, 2 × 2 in is 1:1 and 33 × 48 mm is 11:16. You cannot turn one into another by scaling; you have to recrop, which changes how large the head appears. That is why each document needs its own export from the original photo.

A digital photo is a grid of pixels plus a DPI value stored in the file that tells a printer how many of those pixels to place in one inch. The conversion is therefore one line: pixels = cm ÷ 2.54 × DPI, or pixels = inches × DPI. For a 3.5 cm width at 300 DPI that is 3.5 ÷ 2.54 × 300 = 413.4, rounded to 413 px; the 4.5 cm height gives 531 px. For millimeters, divide by 25.4 instead of 2.54.

300 DPI is the figure photo labs and passport offices assume, and the first table uses it. For home inkjet printing, or a portal with a high pixel minimum, 600 DPI gives twice the pixels in each direction; the second table follows. Both include the 4 × 6 in sheet that several photos are laid out on.

At this size a print shows no visible gain above about 300 DPI. 600 DPI helps when a portal sets a high pixel minimum or when you want room to crop later.

Every passport office measures the head as well as the paper. The distance from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head, hair included, must fall inside a fixed range. HM Passport Office asks for 29–34 mm on a 35 × 45 mm UK photo; the State Department asks for 1 to 1 3/8 in (25–35 mm) on a 2 × 2 in US photo. Germany and Australia set 32–36 mm, Canada 31–36 mm on its larger print, and China 28–33 mm.

This is the rule most home-made photos break. Resize a waist-up phone photo to 35 × 45 mm and the outer size is perfect, but the head may be 15 mm tall. The passport photo maker works from the other direction: pick the document under Country & document, Auto-centre face places the chin and eyes, and Head-size guide draws the allowed range before you download.

Online applications check pixels and kilobytes, not centimeters. The UK online passport service asks for at least 600 px wide and 750 px tall, between 50 KB and 10 MB, more pixels than the 413 × 531 px print file. The US online renewal, the DS-160 visa form and the DV Lottery take a square JPEG from 600 × 600 to 1200 × 1200 px, and the DS-160 and DV Lottery add a 240 KB cap.

India is a special case. At a Passport Seva Kendra the photo is taken at the counter, so you upload nothing for the passport itself. Where the Passport Seva portal or a related form does ask for a scan, the guidance describes a 4.5 × 3.5 cm photo, height first, scanned to at least 200 × 200 px. China's online visa form is the tightest: 354–420 px wide by 472–560 px tall, 40–120 KB, the numbers the China visa photo size page uses.

The practical rule: keep one high-resolution original and export a separate file per destination. A square file from resize image to 600 × 600 will not pass a UK portal, and a 1200 px US file at high quality can exceed 240 KB; the guide to reducing image size in KB covers that trade-off.

A 4 × 6 in print (10 × 15 cm) is the cheapest way to get paper passport photos: it is the standard snapshot size at pharmacies, kiosks and online labs. Six 2 × 2 in photos fit exactly in two columns of three. With 35 × 45 mm photos in landscape, four across and two down gives eight copies in 140 × 90 mm of a 152 × 102 mm print. In the maker, Print layout sets the sheet, Copies the number of photos and Cut lines draws guides between them.

The sheet only works at its true size. Order the 1200 × 1800 px file as a 4 × 6 in print and choose actual size or 100% at the kiosk. Then measure one photo with a ruler: it should read 35 mm or 2 in. If it is off by more than a millimeter, the lab scaled it, and the head height is off by the same proportion.

For a passport, start from the document preset so the head size is right. For everything else that is given in centimeters, such as an exam form, an ID card or a membership badge, the resize image in cm tool takes the width and height in cm, applies the DPI you choose and writes that DPI into the file, so Word, a print shop or a layout program places it at the exact size.

The steps below produce a 3.5 × 4.5 cm file at 300 DPI. Change the numbers for any other size; the arithmetic is the same.

Getting the centimeters and pixels right is necessary but not enough. Offices and portals reject photos for geometry the outer size does not capture, and for files that meet the print spec but break the upload spec. Each fix below assumes you still have the original: enlarging a file already shrunk to 413 × 531 px adds no real detail, and portals with face checks often flag the softness.