Passport Photo Maker

Stop Paying £10 for a Photo That Takes 30 Seconds to Make

Chemists and photo booths charge between £8 and £15 for a strip of passport photos. Post offices charge similar rates. The actual process — sizing a photo to the correct dimensions, tiling it onto a print sheet, and printing it — takes less than a minute with the right tool and costs the price of one sheet of photo paper. The Passport Photo Maker handles the sizing, framing and tiling automatically. Choose your country's standard, position your face using the zoom and position controls, and download a print-ready JPG that you print at home or hand to any pharmacy print service. Your photo never leaves your device.

Supported Sizes and Which Country Uses Which

US 2×2 inch (600×600px at 300 DPI): Required for all US passports, green cards, visa applications and naturalisation forms. The face must occupy 70–80% of the frame height, measuring from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head. UK / EU 35×45mm (413×531px): Standard for UK, most EU Schengen countries, India, Australia and many others. The face height from chin to crown should measure 29–34mm in the printed photo. Square 35×35mm: Used by some Asian countries and certain visa applications that specify a square format. 40×60mm visa format: Common for embassy and consulate visa applications, particularly in the Middle East and parts of Southeast Asia. When in doubt about your specific requirement, always cross-check with the official issuing authority — requirements change periodically and vary between document types even within the same country.

Getting the Framing Right

The single biggest reason passport photos get rejected is incorrect face positioning. Most issuing authorities specify that the face occupies a defined percentage of the total frame height. Start with your photo at 100% zoom and use the Horizontal and Vertical Position sliders to centre your face in the frame. Then increase the zoom until the face fills the right amount of space — for the US 2×2 format, aim for the crown of the head near the top of the frame with 2–3mm of space above, and the chin roughly 20–25% from the bottom. For UK 35×45mm, the chin-to-crown measurement is stricter — 29–34mm in the printed output, which equates to roughly 65–75% of the frame height. If your original photo was taken at an angle or from too far away, consider cropping it to a tighter headshot first using the Image Cropper before bringing it here.

Background Requirements and How to Fix Yours

A plain white or near-white background is mandatory for virtually every passport and visa photo standard worldwide. "Near-white" typically means a very light grey or cream — the tool offers these as preset background colours for cases where pure white looks blown out or overexposed in print. If your original photo was taken against a coloured wall, outdoors, or against any non-plain background, you have two options. The easiest is to use the Background Remover to strip the background from your photo first, then bring the result here and set the background colour to white. This takes about 60 seconds total. The alternative is to retake the photo against a white wall or white bed sheet with good window light — natural light from the side produces the most even, shadow-free result.

A4 vs 4×6 Inch Print Sheet — Which to Choose

Both sheet options tile your passport photos at full resolution with thin cutting guide lines between each photo. A4 (2480×3508px) is the standard for home printers across the UK, Europe, India and Australia. Most home inkjet printers handle A4 natively and photo paper is cheap and widely available.4×6 inch (1200×1800px) is the standard at most photo printing kiosks and pharmacy print services in the US — Walgreens, CVS, Walmart and similar services all print 4×6 inch photos for around $0.35 each. If you're printing at a kiosk rather than at home, the 4×6 format is almost always the right choice. Print the sheet at 100% size — do not scale to fit the page — or the photos will print at the wrong physical dimensions and will fail the issuing authority's measurement check.

Before You Submit — The Seven-Point Check

Even a technically perfect photo can be rejected for avoidable reasons. Run through this checklist before submitting: face fully visible including ears and forehead; eyes open and clearly visible with no heavy shadows from glasses (glasses have been prohibited in US, UK and EU passport photos since 2015 ICAO guidelines); no headwear unless worn for religious reasons, and even then the face from chin to forehead must be fully visible; neutral expression — a very slight natural smile is accepted in most countries but exaggerated expressions are not; no other person visible in the frame; photo taken within the last six months; and the background completely plain with no patterns, furniture, doorframes or shadows.

Digital Submission vs Printed Photos

Many passport renewal services now accept digital photo uploads rather than physical prints. For digital submissions, the downloaded JPG from this tool can typically be used directly — most portals accept 600×600px or 413×531px JPEG files under 2MB. If the portal requires a smaller file size, run the JPG through the Image Compressor to reduce the file size without noticeable quality loss. For digital visa applications through embassy portals, the 40×60mm size at the downloaded JPG resolution is usually the correct format to upload. Physical print sheets remain required when applying in person at an embassy, consulate or government office.

Using a Photo You Already Have

You do not need a professionally taken photo to use this tool. Any recent front-facing photograph taken with a smartphone works well, provided it meets the background and lighting requirements above. The most common issue with smartphone passport photos is that the shot was taken too far away — too much body visible, face too small in the frame. Use the Image Resizer to crop down to a tight headshot first if needed, or use the zoom control in this tool to fill the frame with your face. Portrait-mode shots (blurred background) should be avoided — the bokeh background does not meet the plain background requirement.

✓Verified by ToollyX Team · Last updated June 2026