Passport Photo Maker
Private: your photo is cropped on your device, never uploaded
Choose a photo to start. Line the chin and the crown up with the dashed oval.
Crop a photo to the exact size a passport or visa office asks for, with a guide showing where the head has to sit, and get a print sheet of copies you can hand to any photo counter. It all happens on your own device, so a picture of your face is never uploaded anywhere.
Passport photo size in millimetres, inches and pixels
Every passport authority publishes its requirement in millimetres, and almost every online form asks for pixels. That gap is where most of the confusion lives. The conversion is fixed and there is nothing to guess at: divide the millimetres by 25.4 to get inches, then multiply by the print resolution. At 300 dots per inch, which is what every photo counter prints at, a 35 by 45 millimetre photo is 413 by 531 pixels. Those are the exact numbers this page writes into the file you download, so what you get is what the form asked for.
| Photo size | Inches | Centimetres | Pixels at 300 DPI | Pixels at 600 DPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 x 45 mm | 1.38 x 1.77 in | 3.5 x 4.5 cm | 413 x 531 | 827 x 1063 |
| 51 x 51 mm (2 x 2 in) | 2.01 x 2.01 in | 5.1 x 5.1 cm | 602 x 602 | 1205 x 1205 |
| 33 x 48 mm | 1.30 x 1.89 in | 3.3 x 4.8 cm | 390 x 567 | 780 x 1134 |
| 50 x 70 mm | 1.97 x 2.76 in | 5.0 x 7.0 cm | 591 x 827 | 1181 x 1654 |
Two details in that table are worth spelling out, because they are the ones that get a file rejected. The 2 inch square is exactly 50.8 millimetres; this page rounds it to 51, which prints identically and comes out 602 pixels square at 300 DPI rather than a round 600. The United States accepts a digital photo between 600 and 1200 pixels square, so 300 DPI is inside the range and 600 DPI is not: at 600 DPI the file is 1205 pixels square and the online form will refuse it. Choose 300 DPI for anything you are uploading. The other detail is that 600 DPI buys you nothing on a print this small, and only doubles the file size, so pick it only when a form has specifically asked for it.
Pixels only mean something once a resolution is attached to them, which is why "35x45 in pixels" has no single answer. If a form asks for a photo of a given pixel size and says nothing about DPI, use the 300 DPI column and you will be right almost every time.
Which countries and documents use which size
35 by 45 millimetres is the most widely used passport photo size in the world: India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, most of the Schengen area and a long list of others all ask for it. The main exceptions are the United States and Canada, which use their own sizes, and China, which uses 33 by 48 for a visa. The size is only half the requirement though. Every authority also sets how much of the frame your head must fill, measured from the bottom of the chin to the crown, and that is the part people get wrong far more often than the millimetres.
| Country and document | Photo size | Head, chin to crown | Background |
|---|---|---|---|
| India: passport, visa, exam forms | 35 x 45 mm | 70 to 80% of the height | Plain white |
| Schengen and EU visa | 35 x 45 mm | 70 to 80% of the height | Plain light grey or off white |
| United Kingdom passport | 35 x 45 mm | 29 to 34 mm | Plain cream or light grey |
| Australia passport | 35 x 45 mm | 32 to 36 mm | Plain white or light grey |
| United States passport and visa | 51 x 51 mm (2 x 2 in) | 25 to 35 mm (1 to 1 3/8 in) | Plain white or off white |
| China visa | 33 x 48 mm | 28 to 33 mm | Plain white |
| Canada passport | 50 x 70 mm | 31 to 36 mm | Plain white or light coloured |
Pick the entry that matches your document in the list above the crop box and the frame changes shape, and the dashed oval moves to the head height that authority asks for. Notice that 35 by 45 appears five times with four different head rules behind it: a photo that passes for a UK passport is not automatically the right crop for a Schengen visa, even though both are the same rectangle. Where an authority publishes a range, the guide is drawn inside it.
One caution that no photo tool can remove for you. Requirements are changed by the issuing authority, not by this page, and a consulate can apply its own rules on top of the national ones. Check the current guidance from the office you are actually applying to before you print, especially for a visa. The figures here are the published sizes at the time of writing and they are what this page produces, but the authority is the authority.
What gets a passport photo rejected
Size and head position are the two things this page fixes. Almost everything else on the rejection list happens before you take the photo, and it is worth reading once before you sit down.
A photo is normally accepted when it is sharp, in colour and in focus, taken within the last six months, lit evenly with no shadow on your face or behind you, with a neutral expression, your mouth closed, both eyes open and visible, both edges of your face showing, and nothing on your head. It is normally rejected for a shadow cast on the background, a patterned or coloured wall, a smile that shows teeth where the authority forbids one, hair across an eye, glasses of any kind in most countries since around 2016, a headphone or earbud, a filter or any retouching, another person or a hand in the frame, a photo cropped out of a group picture, and a print on ordinary paper rather than photo paper. Head coverings are allowed where they are worn daily for religious reasons, provided the full face from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead is visible.
Two things are specific to a photo made on a computer rather than at a counter. A photo taken close up with a phone distorts the nose and the cheeks, so stand back and zoom in rather than leaning into the lens. And if the background behind you is not plain, the honest fix is to photograph yourself against a blank wall: you can use the background remover and then fill white here, but some offices reject a cutout that shows at the hairline, so it is a last resort rather than a first one.
About passport photo sizes
A passport photo is rejected for one of two reasons: the wrong size, or the head in the wrong place. The size is easy once somebody tells you the number, and this page has them: India and most of Europe want 35 by 45 millimetres, the United States wants a 2 inch square, China wants 33 by 48. What catches people out is the head, because every authority also specifies how much of the frame it should fill, and a photo cropped by eye is usually wrong. The dashed oval shows you where the chin and the crown belong for whichever document you pick.
The second half of the job is printing. A photo counter charges for a sheet whether it holds one copy or eight, so the print sheet here lays out as many as will fit on a standard 4 by 6 print, which is the cheapest size in every shop in the world, with a hairline round each one to cut along. Eight copies of a 35 by 45 fit on one, or thirty two on an A4.
Everything is measured in real millimetres at a real print resolution, so 35 by 45 at 300 DPI comes out as exactly 413 by 531 pixels and a counter will print it at the size you asked for. Your photo is cropped by this page on your own device and never uploaded, which matters more here than on most tools: this is a picture of your face attached to an identity document.
How to make a passport photo
- Drop a head and shoulders photo on the box, or paste one onto the page.
- Pick your country and document. The frame changes shape to match.
- Drag the box over your face, drag a corner to resize it, or use the zoom slider.
- Line your chin and the crown of your head up with the dashed oval. That is the part offices actually check.
- Download the single photo for an online form, or the print sheet to take to a shop. If the form sets a KB limit, put the single photo through the tool that compresses an image to an exact size afterwards.
Common questions about passport photos
Is a picture of my face uploaded to make the passport photo?
Will this photo actually be accepted?
How do I get a plain white background?
Why 300 DPI, and how many pixels is that?
The form wants the file under a certain size. What now?
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