Passport Photo Size: The Exact Dimensions You Need

The two common standards

• US, Canada, and several other countries: 2 x 2 inches (51 x 51 mm), roughly 600 x 600 pixels at 300 DPI.
• UK, EU (Schengen), and many other countries: 35 x 45 mm, roughly 413 x 531 pixels at 300 DPI.
• Always check your specific country's passport office, since a few countries use slightly different dimensions or head-size requirements.

What gets a photo rejected

Beyond the raw dimensions, most rejections come down to head size — your face and head typically need to fill a specific percentage of the frame, usually 50–70% depending on the country. Too zoomed in or too far away both cause rejection.

A plain white or light grey background, neutral expression, and even lighting without shadows on the face or background are the other most commonly enforced rules. Shadows cast by overhead lighting are a particularly common and avoidable mistake.

Why phone photos often fail the requirement

A photo taken casually on a phone is almost never the right shape or resolution for a passport application straight out of the camera — it's usually landscape or a different aspect ratio entirely, and the subject typically isn't centred or sized to the exact head-height percentage required.

This doesn't mean you need professional equipment. It just means the photo needs to be deliberately cropped and resized to the exact specification rather than submitted as-is.

Getting it right without a studio

Take the photo against a plain wall in even, natural light, then resize and crop it to the exact required dimensions for your country before submitting. Many application portals will reject a photo instantly if the pixel dimensions don't match, even if it looks fine to the eye.

Doing this resizing in your browser rather than a paid photo studio saves time and keeps your ID photo private, since nothing needs to be uploaded to a third-party service to get the crop right.

A simple pre-submission check

Before submitting, it's worth comparing your cropped photo side by side with an official example photo from your country's passport office guidance, checking specifically that your head fills a similar proportion of the frame and that the background matches in tone and evenness.