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Passport photo size checker any country, free

By ShinobiTools Team · Last updated: July 2026

Not sure what size your passport or visa photo should be? Different countries use very different formats. Pick your document in PassportNinja and it resizes any photo to the exact official dimensions and head height for you — free, with a plain white background and a printable sheet.

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Common passport photo sizes by country

Passport photos are not one-size-fits-all. Two things vary per country: the overall photo dimensions and how tall your head must be inside them. Here are the formats PassportNinja builds automatically:

• United States, India — 2×2 inch (51×51 mm) square, head 25–35 mm
• UK, Schengen/EU, Netherlands, Australia, Japan, South Korea — 35×45 mm (head bands differ: UK 29–34 mm, Schengen 32–36 mm, Australia 32–36 mm)
• China — 33×48 mm, head 28–33 mm
• Canada, Brazil — 50×70 mm, face 31–36 mm

Size is only half the check — head height matters too

Two photos can both be 35×45 mm and only one be valid, because the head has to fill a specific height. That's the single most common reason a self-made photo is rejected: the face is too small (arm's-length selfie) or too large (cropped too tight). PassportNinja measures your head from chin to crown and shows you whether it lands inside the required band for your chosen document — a genuine size check, not just a resize.

PassportNinja handles the mechanical part: it crops to the exact size, scales your head to the required height and replaces the background with plain white, then gives you a digital file at 600 dpi plus a printable 10×15 cm sheet. It does not judge lighting, expression or glasses, and it can't guarantee acceptance — that's always the issuing office's call. Follow the checklist for the things a tool can't see.

How the checker works

1. Pick your country or document in the tool — each one carries its official size and head-height rule.
2. Upload any straight-on photo taken from about 1.5 m away.
3. PassportNinja crops to the exact dimensions and reports the measured head height against the requirement.
4. If the head is out of range, retake from further away or closer and re-upload — the check reruns instantly.

Why head height fails more photos than size does

Getting the millimetres right is the easy half, and it's the half everyone focuses on. The requirement that actually fails photos is the head height: the distance from the bottom of your chin to the top of your head, including hair, expressed in millimetres inside that frame.

Look at how much variation there is between countries using the identical 35 × 45 mm frame:

• Netherlands: 26–30 mm — a comparatively small head with more space around it.
• United Kingdom: 29–34 mm.
• Australia, Japan, South Korea, Schengen visa: 32–36 mm — a noticeably larger head.

That means a photo cut perfectly to 35 × 45 mm for a Dutch ID card can be out of spec for an Australian passport, at exactly the same physical size. The frame is identical; the person inside it is not. This is why "it was fine last time" happens so often, and why a size checker that only measures the outside of the photo tells you very little.

What to do when the measurement comes back wrong

The head height is measured on the finished photo and reported against the template's range. If it's outside, the instinct is to re-crop. That's usually the wrong fix:

• Head too large means the camera was too close. Cropping wider adds space, but it also pushes the top of your head towards the edge and the framing starts to look off. Step back and re-shoot — a metre and a half from the lens is about right for a phone.
• Head too small means you were too far away, and cropping tighter costs resolution. If the original is a decent phone photo you can usually get away with it; from a small or old image you can't.
• Just outside the range is worth taking seriously rather than shrugging at. A millimetre or two over is exactly the margin a checker at a counter measures with a template card.

Two things this checker deliberately does not claim. It does not approve your photo — the passport office, consulate or visa portal decides, and no third-party tool can grant compliance. And the detection is not infallible: if the face detection reports low confidence, you're told so, because a measurement taken from a badly-located face is worse than no measurement at all. Look at the result yourself before you submit, and if the numbers and your eyes disagree, trust your eyes and re-shoot.

Common questions