Free Passport Photo Maker — The Practical Guide
This page is the tool itself. Above is the editor; below is a short, opinionated guide for getting a passport-acceptable photo on your first try. I've built and maintained this tool since 2023; the notes here come from real user emails about rejected photos and from reading the actual government regulations for each of the 50+ presets the maker supports.
What this tool actually does (and does not do)
It does: resize and re-crop your source photo to the exact pixel and millimetre dimensions required by your target country's passport authority; optionally replace the background with a flat colour using an in-browser AI model (isnet-quint8, downloaded once and cached); and lay multiple copies out on a printable sheet (A4, US Letter, 4R, 5R, 6R, 8R) scaled to 300 DPI so a home printer or photo lab produces the right physical size.
It does not: alter your face, smooth your skin, or apply filters. It does not upload anything — the file stays in your browser the whole time. And it cannot judge qualitative requirements such as expression, hair covering the eyes, or whether your shirt blends into the background. Those are human judgements the photo official will make. The checklist further down covers the most common rejection causes.
Five-minute walkthrough
- Take or choose a source photo. Any modern phone camera works. Stand about 1.2 m (4 ft) in front of a plain wall, with daylight from a window in front of you (not behind). Hold the phone at eye level and use the rear camera. Try to fill the frame from chest to about 10 cm above your head so the cropper has room to work.
- Drop the photo into the upload area at the top of the editor, or click to browse. The file never leaves your device; you can confirm this by opening DevTools → Network and watching that no image POST request goes out.
- Pick your country from the preset dropdown (Sidebar → Country). The crop frame and aspect ratio update immediately. For the United States it switches to a 2×2 inch square; for the UK, India, Schengen, Australia and most of Asia it switches to 35×45 mm; for Canada and Brazil to 50×70 mm.
- Use the head-position guides. The dashed lines show the official acceptable head height range. For the US this is 1 inch (25 mm) to 1 3⁄8 inches (35 mm) from chin to crown. For most countries following ICAO 9303 it is 32–36 mm. Drag and zoom your face so the chin sits on the lower guide and the crown on the upper guide.
- Optional: remove the background. Toggle “Remove background” in the sidebar. The first time you do this the model downloads (about 40 MB) and runs on your device. On subsequent uses it is instant. Pick the background colour your country requires — usually plain white (#ffffff), occasionally light grey (UK, Germany, Netherlands) or off-white.
- Switch to the Sheet tab and pick a paper size. A 4R (4×6 inch) print at your local pharmacy costs around US$0.30–0.50 and fits 6 US passport photos or 8 UK/Schengen photos. A4 or US Letter is better for home printers.
- Download as JPEG, PNG, or PDF. Choose PDF for print-shop uploads (most labs prefer it), JPEG for digital passport applications, and PNG only if you specifically need transparency.
Pre-print checklist (memorise this)
Of the rejection emails I receive, roughly 70% trace to one of the eight items below. Run through this list before you spend money on prints.
- Background is uniform. No shadow on the wall behind you, no doorway, no second person, no patterned curtain. If in doubt, use the background removal toggle.
- Neutral expression. Mouth closed, lips relaxed, eyes open and looking straight at the lens. No smile (except Australia, which allows a closed-mouth smile, and a handful of South American countries).
- Glasses off. The United States banned them in November 2016. The UK, Australia, Schengen members, Canada, and India followed by 2019. Even prescription glasses are out. Remove them.
- Hair clear of eyes and brows. Tuck or pin if needed. The face oval from forehead to chin must be unobstructed.
- Head straight. Not tilted, not rotated. Shoulders square to the camera.
- Both ears visible if your destination is India, the UAE, or several Middle East countries. Many other countries allow ears covered by hair; check the country-specific guide below.
- Photo less than six months old. Passport authorities want the face to match what the officer will see at the border.
- Print at 100% scale, no “fit to page”. This is the single most common print-time error. Open the downloaded PDF, hit print, find the scaling option, set it to “Actual size” or 100%, not “Fit”.
Country quick reference
The exact specifications behind each of the maker's presets. Click any country for a full guide including the official source URL, fees, processing times, and edge cases.
United States
2 × 2 in (51 × 51 mm)
- Pure white background (#ffffff)
- Head 1 to 1⅓ in (25–35 mm) chin to crown
- No glasses since November 2016
- Taken within the last 6 months
- Source: travel.state.gov 22 CFR 51.27
United Kingdom
35 × 45 mm
- Plain light grey or cream background
- Head 29–34 mm chin to crown
- No glasses, no head coverings (except religious)
- Digital photo code: £0; HM Passport Office Q codes
- Source: HM Passport Office Photograph Standards
India
35 × 45 mm
- Pure white background
- Both ears visible, face covers 70–80% frame
- No spectacles, no head cover (except religious)
- Used for Tatkaal and normal passports identically
- Source: Passport Seva (passportindia.gov.in)
Canada
50 × 70 mm
- White or light-coloured background
- Face 31–36 mm chin to crown
- Photographer must sign back, plus name & date of photo
- Taken within 6 months
- Source: IRCC photo specifications
Schengen / EU
35 × 45 mm
- Light grey or off-white background
- Face 70–80% of frame (ICAO 9303)
- No glasses in Germany, Austria, Netherlands
- Biometric requirements vary by member state
- Source: ICAO Doc 9303 part 4
Australia
35 × 45 mm
- Plain white or light grey background
- Head 32–36 mm chin to crown
- No glasses
- Closed-mouth natural smile is acceptable (rare exception)
- Source: passports.gov.au
View dimensions for all 50+ supported countries in our complete passport-photo-size reference.
Why I built this for free
In 2023 I needed a passport renewal photo for India while living abroad. The nearest accredited photo studio quoted me 25 EUR for six prints. Every online tool I tried either watermarked the result, required a sign-up plus credit card, or insisted on uploading my face to a server I had no reason to trust. I am a developer; I wrote my own. After a friend asked for the link, I put it online. The maker is now used by a few hundred people a day. AdSense pays the hosting bill (and not much more), which is why ads load on the page.
Everything happens on your device. No account, no upload, no email collected, no watermark. The full source is auditable from the browser's DevTools network tab — if the tool ever sends your photo anywhere, that's a bug I want to know about immediately.
Frequently asked tool questions
Will the printed photo really be the right size?
Yes, provided you tell the printer not to scale. The sheet is generated at 300 DPI matched to your chosen paper size, so an A4 sheet is exactly 210×297 mm and the photos within it are exactly the country's spec. The only common failure is ticking “Fit to page” in the print dialog, which shrinks everything by a few percent and pushes head height out of range. Use “Actual size” or 100%.
The AI background removal left a halo around my hair.
The model handles solid hair well but struggles with fine flyaways against a busy background. Two fixes: (1) re-shoot against a plainer background so less work is required — even a white bedsheet helps; (2) zoom in slightly on the result so the halo falls outside the crop. For US photos specifically, a slight halo is usually tolerated by passport officials because the acceptance criterion is “plain background” rather than “pixel-perfect cutout.”
Can I use this for a visa photo?
Yes. Visa photos almost always share dimensions with passport photos of the same destination country. Select the destination country in the preset dropdown. The exceptions are US visa photos (still 2×2 in but digital upload requires 600–1200 px square) and Schengen visas (which follow the same 35×45 mm rule as Schengen passports).
Does the tool work for baby and infant photos?
Mostly. Infant photos use the same dimensions but are notoriously hard to take: eyes open, mouth closed, neutral expression, no dummy/pacifier, no parent visible. Lay the baby on a white sheet and shoot from directly above. Then upload that shot and the maker will crop and resize it.
Why are some country presets missing or marked “custom”?
Around 195 countries issue passports; I currently maintain presets for 50+ of the most-requested. For the rest, use the custom-size fields at the bottom of the country dropdown to enter the exact mm or inch dimensions from your country's passport authority website. If you'd like a preset added, email me a link to the official spec page and I'll add it.
More questions answered on the Help & FAQ page.
If your photo gets rejected anyway
It happens. Two practical notes from emails I've received over the last year:
- Ask for the specific reason in writing. Most authorities will email you a rejection notice that names the exact problem (e.g., “shadow on left cheek”, “head height out of range”). Re-shoot fixing only that issue. Re-running the photo through this tool with the same source image will not help if the source was the problem.
- Don't trust pharmacy reprints over your own measurements. A pharmacy clerk handed one user a strip that was sized 2.2×2.2 in instead of 2×2. The printer was set to 110% scale. Always physically measure the first printed photo against a ruler before printing more.