Passport Photo Size Guide: Every Country Compared
"Passport photo size" isn't one universal answer. Most countries follow the ICAO 9303 biometric standard — 35×45mm — but plenty don't, and the difference between 35×45mm and 40×60mm is exactly the kind of thing that gets a photo rejected at the counter. Below is the exact size for every document we support, pulled directly from our own verified spec database.
The short answer: is there a "standard" size?
Yes, roughly — 35mm wide × 45mm tall (about 1.4in × 1.8in) is the ICAO 9303 international standard that most passports and visas are built around, including the entire Schengen area, most of the EU, Australia, and dozens of others. But several major countries use a genuinely different size, and getting this wrong is one of the most common reasons a photo gets bounced back:
- U.S. Passport — 51×51mm
- U.S. Visa (DS-160) — 51×51mm
- Green Card Lottery (DV Program) — 600×600px (digital only, no print size)
- UK Driving Licence (DVLA) — 600×750px (digital only, no print size)
- China Visa — 33×48mm
- Italian Passport — 35×40mm
- Finnish Passport — 36×47mm
- Greek Passport — 40×60mm
- Spanish Passport / DNI — 26×32mm
- Turkish Passport — 50×60mm
- Brazilian Passport — 50×70mm
- Vietnam Passport — 40×60mm
- Saudi Passport — 40×60mm
Why the size matters more than it seems
A photo that's the wrong physical size doesn't just look odd — for a printed submission, an oversized or undersized photo often can't be trimmed to fit the application form's photo window at all, and for a digital upload, most government portals hard-reject a file outside their pixel tolerance before a human ever sees it. The U.S. Green Card Lottery is a good example of how strict this gets: the online form only checks pixel dimensions at submission time, but full compliance is checked later — and non-compliant photos get disqualified after the fact, with no appeal.
Full size reference, every document
Millimeters, inches, or pixels — which one do you actually need?
If you're printing at a photo counter, use the mm figure — that's what the print equipment is calibrated to. If you're uploading to an online application portal (US DS-160, DV Lottery, most EU digital systems), use the pixel figure where one is listed; the portal is checking pixels, not physical size, and a print-perfect photo can still fail a digital upload if the pixel dimensions or file size are off.
Skip the manual measuring
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