China passport photo size: 33×48mm
The size China requires for a visa photo, in every unit you might be asked for — plus a free tool that crops and sizes your photo to match, in your browser.
The specification
| Photo size | 33 × 48 mm |
|---|---|
| In centimetres | 3.3 × 4.8 cm |
| In inches | 1.3 × 1.89 in |
| Pixels at 300 DPI | 390 × 567 px |
| Pixels at 600 DPI | 780 × 1134 px |
| Head height (chin to crown) | 28 – 33 mm |
| Background | Plain white |
| Digital upload | JPEG, 354–420px wide × 472–560px tall, 40–120KB |
Verify before you print: these figures are consistently published for China and follow the ICAO Doc 9303 standard, but we have not read them off a government page ourselves. Requirements change — India moved from 51×51mm to 35×45mm in September 2025 — and the instruction from the office handling your application always wins. Issuing authority
What trips people up
- 33×48mm is specific to China — do not submit a 35×45mm photo.
- Both ears must be visible and glasses of any kind are prohibited.
- Colour only; black-and-white is rejected.
Making the photo
Physical size is what the authority specifies, so work in millimetres and let the pixels follow. At 300 DPI, 33×48mm is exactly 390×567 pixels — that is the number most upload forms quote, and it is the same photo, not a different one.
A phone photo is not the right shape, so it has to be cropped to 33:48 before resizing — squashing it to fit distorts your face and gets the application rejected. The Passport & Visa Photo Maker centre-crops, sizes to the exact millimetres, and can lay out a 4×6in sheet of copies for a print shop. It runs entirely in your browser — your photo is never uploaded.