Learn everything about the 35x45 mm photo format, including 35x45 photo size in inches, pixels, and centimeters. Compare 35 × 45 mm requirements across passport and visa applications and prepare the correct photo for your destination country.
Make my 35×45 mm photo — see it freeWho uses it
The default frame across much of the world — but almost never with identical fine print. What each one actually publishes:
The conversions
In inches: about 1.38 × 1.77 in — divide each side by 25.4. There is no tidy fraction. It is not 1.5 × 2, and it is definitely not 2 × 2, which is a different, square photo. In pixels there is no single answer, because millimetres only become pixels through a print resolution:
| 150 DPI | 207 × 266 px |
|---|---|
| 300 DPI | 413 × 531 px |
| 600 DPI | 827 × 1063 px |
The aspect ratio is 7:9 in every case. 300 DPI is the usual floor for photo printing — it is, for instance, the resolution the US State Department requires when an existing print is scanned — and 600 DPI is what our own output files use. One warning that saves rework: if a website asks for pixels, use its number, not a conversion. Upload rules are written independently of the print size — which is the next section.
Print vs digital
The millimetre figure governs paper. Online routes publish their own rules, and they are not conversions of the print size:
So before resizing anything, check which route you are on. A flawless 35 × 45 print scan can still fail an upload on pixels, bytes, or the date it was taken.
Close, but different
Neighbouring sizes get mistaken for this one constantly. For the record:
Every country's frame, digital window, and recency rule in one place: the passport photo size chart. And if your destination is not a 35×45 country, convert a photo to passport size starts from the destination instead of the frame.
Getting one that passes
The rectangle is the easy part — any editor can crop to 7:9. Rejections come from everything attached to the rectangle: the head-height band, the background colour the country specifies, the recency rule, and the digital route's separate pixel and byte limits.
That is the work the maker buys you out of. You upload one plain photo and processing runs server-side: the background is replaced with the colour the country's spec requires, the crop is solved so your head lands inside that country's band, and the file comes back as 35×45 mm JPEG at 600 dpi · plain light-grey background — with a print-ready sheet for paper applications as a checkout add-on. There is no generic resizer underneath: you pick the country, and that country's spec is applied end to end.
Already have a photo? Check it free first: UK · Schengen · Australia. The checker measures your file exactly as-is against the spec — nothing altered, nothing to pay.
Questions
About 1.38 × 1.77 inches — 35 and 45 divided by 25.4. There is no clean fraction: it is not 1.5 × 2, and if a form asks for a 2 × 2 inch photo, that is the square 51 × 51 mm US-style size — a different photo entirely, not a conversion of this one.
No. 2 × 2 inches is 51 × 51 mm and square — the size the US uses for passport and visa photos and India uses for OCI cards. 35 × 45 mm is smaller and taller than it is wide. A photo cropped for one fails the other’s dimension check.
It depends on print resolution: 413 × 531 px at 300 DPI, 827 × 1063 px at 600 DPI. If you are uploading rather than printing, the portal’s own pixel rule wins — the UK digital route, for example, asks for at least 600 × 750 px, which is not a DPI conversion of 35 × 45 at all.
In practice, yes. Member states specify it — the Netherlands’ official spec is 35 mm × 45 mm, no more than six months old. Strictly, the EU-level guidance only fixes the width at 35–40 mm and requires the face to fill 70–80% of the photo. A proper 35 × 45 photo satisfies both.
Not for the OCI card — the official spec there is a square 2 inch × 2 inch (51 × 51 mm) colour photo on a plain light background, not 35 × 45. For a regular Indian passport, go by what Passport Seva shows for your application rather than a chart. The OCI requirements page on this site covers the OCI case.
35 × 45 is accepted, but Australia’s official spec is a range: 35–40 mm wide and 45–50 mm high, with the face 32–36 mm from chin to crown and the photo less than six months old. Anything inside the range passes — 35 × 45 is simply its smallest corner.
3.5 x 4.5 cm. The same frame is written as 4.5 x 3.5 cm by the Philippines and as 3.5 x 4.5 cm by UAE passport services, but the box is identical.
7:9, at every resolution. That ratio is what makes it noticeably taller than it is wide, unlike the square US photo.
300 DPI is the usual floor for photo printing and gives 413 x 531 pixels. 600 DPI gives 827 x 1063 pixels, which is the resolution the output files here use.
Yes. GOV.UK specifies 45 mm high by 35 mm wide and calls it the standard size used in UK photo booths, with the head 29 to 34 mm from crown to chin.
No. Canada uses 50 x 70 mm, and no online service can produce a compliant Canadian passport photo because IRCC requires it to be taken in person by a commercial photographer.
No, and this is a common trap. The Chinese embassy spec is 48 x 33 mm, written height by width, which sits close enough to 35 x 45 to be mistaken for it.
Only if it also satisfies that portal's own pixel rule. A flawless 35 x 45 mm print scan can still fail an upload on pixel dimensions, file size, or the date it was taken.
The 2 x 2 inch photo. It measures 51 x 51 mm, so it is both wider and squarer than the 35 x 45 mm portrait frame.
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