35 × 45 mm — 35 millimetres wide, 45 millimetres high — is the closest thing passport photos have to an international standard. The UK prints at exactly this size, Schengen member states specify it, and Japan's visa form and Korea's visa photos use the same box. In inches it is roughly 1.38 × 1.77 — noticeably taller than it is wide, and not the same thing as the square 2 × 2 inch photo the US uses. The catch: the millimetre figure is the least strict part of every one of these specs. Head-height bands, background colours, recency rules and — for online applications — pixel dimensions all differ by country, and they are what photos actually get rejected on.
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 — plus a print-ready sheet for paper applications. 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.
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