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Surprising passport photo rules, according to the data

Every claim below is derived from the 47 official specifications in the open dataset, not repeated from another photo site — each one links to its own official source and the date it was read.

11reject a plain white background
12photograph you instead of taking your photo
11ban glasses outright
1–12 morecency window, tightest to widest

Shapes, compared

A photo spec is a shape before it is a number. These are drawn to scale from the same data as the table above.

Austrian Passport & ID Photo photo: 35 × 45 mm · head 67% · plain 35 × 45 mm 22 of 47 specs — the closest thing to a default Egyptian Passport Photo photo: 40 × 60 mm · white 40 × 60 mm Egypt — the tallest, narrowest shape in the set US Passport Photo photo: 51 × 51 mm · head 25–35 mm · white or off-white 51 × 51 mm United States — one of 4 exactly-square specs Swiss Passport & ID Card Photo photo: 35 × 45 mm · head 29–34 mm · monochrome 12 months Switzerland — the widest recency window published
"Plain white" is not the rule it looks like

11 of the 47 specifications here call for something other than plain white — including outright rejecting it:

  • Austria: Plain, light colour — ideally grey — with sufficient contrast against the face and hair official source, accessed 2026-07-28.
  • France: Plain light-coloured — light blue or light grey. White is explicitly not allowed. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Germany: Solid, light, neutral — medium grey for light hair, light grey for dark hair. No pattern or shadow. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Morocco: Uniform sky blue or light grey official source, accessed 2026-07-28.
  • New Zealand: Plain light-coloured — explicitly not white official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Schengen Area: Plain, light-coloured, uniform, without pattern or shadow official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • South Africa: Light grey or plain cream official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Switzerland: Monochrome, uniform, neutral, without shadow, with clear separation between the background and the head official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Thailand: Plain light background official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • United Kingdom: Plain light grey or plain cream official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • United Kingdom: Plain light-coloured background official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
Some authorities photograph you rather than take your photo

For 12 of the specifications here, at least some applicants have their photo captured at the appointment rather than supplying one — for some this applies to every applicant, for others only to certain routes or age groups, which is why each one is worth checking on its own page:

One print size covers about half the world, and the rest do not agree

22 of 47 specifications share 35 × 45 mm. The remaining 13 split across 9 other sizes, none of them close to a second default:

How old a photo can be, ranges from a month to a year

The tightest published recency window is 1 month, and the widest is 12 months — a 12× difference between them:

Some head-height tolerances leave almost no room to miss

Among specs published in millimetres, the narrowest published head-height tolerance is 4 mm:

Among specs published as a percentage of image height, the narrowest is not a narrow range at all — it is a single number with no published tolerance either side of it:

The widest published percentage tolerance is 19 points — United States (50–69%) .

Glasses: outright bans versus merely restricting glare

11 of the 39 specifications that address glasses at all ban them outright, rather than allowing plain prescription glasses under conditions such as no glare or no tinted lenses:

  • Argentina: Not permitted ('sin anteojos'). official source, accessed 2026-07-28.
  • Ghana: Eyewear is not permitted unless worn for religious purposes. official source, accessed 2026-07-28.
  • Indonesia: Not permitted, including soft contact lenses that can alter the appearance of the eyes. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Malaysia: Not permitted. Contact lenses are also not permitted during photo capture. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Mexico: Glasses are not permitted. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Morocco: Only clear (white) lenses are permitted. Reflections of light on the glasses are not allowed. official source, accessed 2026-07-28.
  • Norway: Glasses are not permitted in a passport photo. official source, accessed 2026-07-28.
  • Philippines: Not allowed. Coloured contact lenses are also not permitted. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • South Korea: Not permitted. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Sri Lanka: Spectacles are not permitted. The eyes must be clearly visible. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.
  • Vietnam: Not permitted. official source, accessed 2026-07-26.

The remaining 28 allow ordinary prescription glasses and restrict only the things that stop a face being identifiable — glare, tint, thick frames or sunglasses: Austria , Belgium , Canada , China , Denmark , France , Germany , Greece , India , Ireland , Italy , Japan , Netherlands , New Zealand , Pakistan , Poland , Schengen Area , South Africa , Spain , Switzerland , Taiwan , Thailand , Turkey , United Arab Emirates , United Kingdom , United Kingdom , United States , United States .

Where this comes from

Every figure above is read from the same rows behind the country pages under /passport-photo, sourced and dated the same way. The full dataset — every row, every source, the ones we could not verify — is on the data page, downloadable as JSON or CSV under CC BY 4.0. Rows we could not verify against an official source are published as gaps rather than guessed at; see /sources for the complete audit trail.