Schengen Area (EU) passport photo size: 35×45mm
The size Schengen Area (EU) 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 | 35 × 45 mm |
|---|---|
| In centimetres | 3.5 × 4.5 cm |
| In inches | 1.38 × 1.77 in |
| Pixels at 300 DPI | 413 × 531 px |
| Pixels at 600 DPI | 827 × 1063 px |
| Head height (chin to crown) | 32 – 36 mm |
| Background | Plain white or light grey |
Verify before you print: these figures are consistently published for Schengen Area (EU) 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
- One specification covers all 27 Schengen states — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the rest.
- The face should fill 70–80% of the frame.
Making the photo
Physical size is what the authority specifies, so work in millimetres and let the pixels follow. At 300 DPI, 35×45mm is exactly 413×531 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 35:45 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.