German Passport & ID Photo: requirements and cropper
A german passport & id photo is 35 × 45 mm. The head must measure 32–36 mm from the crown of the head to the bottom of the chin — a 4 mm window, tight enough that eyeballing the crop will usually miss it. The background must be solid, light, neutral — medium grey for light hair, light grey for dark hair. no pattern or shadow.. The photo must have been taken within the last 6 months.
You may not need to prepare a photo at all. Since 1 May 2025 only electronically captured photographs are accepted for new applications — taken at a registered photo service and transmitted through a certified encrypted channel to the authority, or captured on site at a terminal. A printed photo brought from home is no longer valid. Official sources cite a hard rejection threshold: face height below 27 mm or above 40 mm is rejected outright.
Crop a photo to the Germany spec
Drag the two markers. Put the blue one on the very top of the head — including hair — and the red one on the bottom of the chin. Every measurement below is calculated from that, because Germany measures head height as 32–36 mm crown to chin, not the face.
Your photo
Result
The official requirements
| Printed photo size | 35 × 45 mm |
|---|---|
| Head height | 32–36 mm, crown to chin · 70–80% of image height |
| Background | Solid, light, neutral — medium grey for light hair, light grey for dark hair. No pattern or shadow. |
| Minimum resolution | 600 DPI |
| How recent | Taken within the last 6 months |
| Glasses | The eyes must be clear and clearly recognisable. No reflections, tinted lenses or sunglasses, and frame edges must not obscure the eyes. |
| Head coverings | Generally not permitted. Exceptions are allowed particularly for religious reasons, provided the face is visible from chin to forehead with no shadows. |
| Expression & pose | Neutral expression, mouth closed, looking straight into the camera, head neither tilted nor turned. |
| Children & infants | Under 10 years: face height may be 50–80% of the photo (roughly 22–36 mm). Children under 6 receive additional leniency on head position, expression and gaze direction. |
| Not published | digital dimensions, file size, file format, copies required — the official source does not state these, so nothing is shown rather than a number we made up. |
Source: Land Berlin (LABO) — official Foto-Mustertafel — read 2026-07-26.
How to make one
- Take or choose a photo shot straight on, from about arm's length or further, in even light with no shadow falling on the face or the wall behind it. Phone selfies taken close up distort the face and are a common rejection reason.
- Stand far enough from the wall that you cast no shadow on it. The background needs to be solid, light, neutral — medium grey for light hair, light grey for dark hair. no pattern or shadow. — the tool fills only the area outside your photo's edges, it does not replace the wall behind you.
- Drop the photo into the tool above. Nothing is uploaded; the file is read directly by your browser.
- Drag the blue marker to the very top of the head, including hair, and the red marker to the bottom of the chin. This is the measurement every official spec is written against.
- Check the head-height readout. It should sit between 32 mm and 36 mm; the panel turns green when it does.
- Download the photo, or generate a print sheet if you need physical copies.
Why Germany photos get rejected
Drawn from the official guidance rather than guesswork. Most rejections are not about dimensions at all:
- Bringing a home-printed photo instead of using a registered service or terminal, since May 2025
- Shadow on the background, or a non-neutral background colour
- Face height outside 27–40 mm
- Head tilted or turned away from frontal
- Reflections or tinted lenses on glasses
- Photo more than six months old
Germany photo questions
Is my photo uploaded anywhere?
No. The cropping, resizing and compressing all happen inside this page, using your browser's own image APIs. There is no server to upload to — the site is static files. Open your browser's network tab, use the tool, and you can watch nothing leave.
It also keeps working with your Wi-Fi switched off once the page has loaded.
What size is a german passport & id photo?
35 × 45 mm, according to Land Berlin (LABO) — official Foto-Mustertafel. Within that, the head must measure 32 mm to 36 mm from crown to chin.
Can this tool change my background?
No, and that is deliberate. Background replacement means guessing where your hair ends, and the guess is visible — a halo or a chewed-up fringe is exactly the kind of artefact that gets a photo rejected as digitally altered. Germany requires solid, light, neutral — medium grey for light hair, light grey for dark hair. no pattern or shadow., so photograph yourself against a matching wall.
The fill colour setting only paints the area outside your photo's edges when the required crop is larger than the image you supplied.
How recent does the photo have to be?
Taken within the last 6 months. Reusing the photo from your previous passport is a standard rejection reason.
Can I wear glasses?
The eyes must be clear and clearly recognisable. No reflections, tinted lenses or sunglasses, and frame edges must not obscure the eyes.
Are head coverings allowed?
Generally not permitted. Exceptions are allowed particularly for religious reasons, provided the face is visible from chin to forehead with no shadows.
Do the rules differ for babies and children?
Under 10 years: face height may be 50–80% of the photo (roughly 22–36 mm). Children under 6 receive additional leniency on head position, expression and gaze direction.
Do I even need to bring a photo?
Often not. Since 1 May 2025 only electronically captured photographs are accepted for new applications — taken at a registered photo service and transmitted through a certified encrypted channel to the authority, or captured on site at a terminal. A printed photo brought from home is no longer valid. Official sources cite a hard rejection threshold: face height below 27 mm or above 40 mm is rejected outright.
Will a photo from this tool definitely be accepted?
Nobody can promise that, and any site that does is selling you certainty it does not have. A photo is judged on framing, background, lighting, expression, sharpness and how recent it is. This tool handles the geometry and the file size precisely; the rest is down to how the photo was taken. The requirements here were read from Land Berlin (LABO) — official Foto-Mustertafel on 2026-07-26 — check the source before you submit, because rules change.
Other specs
- Brazilian Passport Photo 50 × 70 mm · not published for applicant-supplied photos
- Canadian Passport Photo 50 × 70 mm · head 31–36 mm · plain white or light-coloured · max 5 MB
- Chinese Passport Photo 33 × 48 mm · head 28–33 mm · white
- French Passport & CNI Photo 35 × 45 mm · head 32–36 mm · plain light-coloured — light blue or light grey. white is explicitly not allowed.
- Indian Passport Photo 35 × 45 mm · plain white
- Indonesian Passport Photo white — captured on site
This is not official advice. img-fix is not affiliated with any government or immigration authority. The figures on this page were read from Land Berlin (LABO) — official Foto-Mustertafel on 2026-07-26, and requirements change without notice. Check the official source before you submit.