Lay out a 2 x 2 inch passport photo

Two inches square, which the U.S. Department of State also writes as 51 x 51 mm, with the head measuring 25 to 35 mm from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head. This page sets out where those numbers come from, which US application routes actually use them, and which do not.

The numbers, and where each one comes from

Every figure below is on the State Department's page for applying or renewing with a paper form. Nothing here is our own measurement or a rounding we invented.

Published measurements for a US passport photo submitted on a paper form

What	Published value	State's own wording
Printed size	2 x 2 in (51 x 51 mm)	"The correct printed size of a passport photo is 2 x 2 inches (51 x 51 mm)."
Head height	25–35 mm (1–1 3/8 in)	"The size of your head in the printed photo must be between 1 -1 3/8 inches (25 - 35 mm) from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head."
Position in the frame	Head and shoulders centred; whole head visible	"Make sure your head and shoulders are centered in the photo." Hair may extend past the edges "as long as your entire head is shown and is the appropriate size".
Paper	Matte or glossy photo-quality paper	"Print your photo on matte or glossy photo-quality paper."
How many	One colour photo	"Submit 1 color photo taken in the last 6 months."
Distance from the camera	Several feet (State's tip copy says 1.2 m)	"Position yourself several feet away from a white background or wall. If the person taking your photo is standing too close or too far away, your head may not be the correct size."

Source for the whole table: U.S. Department of State, Passport Photos (paper application)(opens in a new tab). A named human on this project read that page on 16 September 2026; the page's own footer said it was last updated on 24 March 2026. Our record of what we check, and when someone last read the source, is on the standards page.

The frame, drawn to scale

Where the head sits, and what State does not say about it

The two bars above are the published head-height range: the distance from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head, on the printed photo. They are drawn on their own baseline on purpose. State publishes the height of the head and says the head and shoulders must be centred and the whole head visible — but it publishes no measurement for how far the chin or the eyes sit above the bottom edge of a passport photo.

If you have read that the eyes must be 28 to 35 mm from the bottom of the photo, that figure is real, and it belongs to the US visa programme, not to passports. U.S. Department of State, visa photo composition template(opens in a new tab). It appears nowhere on either passport page, so we do not check a passport photo against it and neither should anyone else.

Inches, millimetres, and the two roundings on State's own page

• Two inches is 50.8 mm exactly. State rounds it to 51 mm and publishes both forms of the same requirement, so "2 x 2 in" and "51 x 51 mm" are not two different specifications.
• The head-height requirement is worded as "1 -1 3/8 inches (25 - 35 mm)". One and three eighths of an inch is 34.9 mm, so the inch figure and the millimetre figure agree.
• The photo tips further down the same page say "between 1 inch and 1.4 inches (25 and 35 mm)". One point four inches is 35.6 mm, which is slightly wider than 1 3/8 in — but the millimetre pair is identical in both places, and the DS-11 and DS-82 forms use 1–1 3/8 inches. Where the two roundings disagree, work in millimetres: 25 to 35 mm.
• Expressed as a share of the frame, 25 to 35 mm inside a 51 mm square is roughly 49% to 69% of the photo's height. That is our arithmetic on State's numbers, offered as a sanity check, not a figure State publishes for passports.

Which US routes use 2 x 2, and which do not

Yes: the paper passport application (DS-11 and DS-82)

This is the route the 2 x 2 inch size belongs to. You print the photo and submit it with the form, so what is being judged is a piece of paper: 2 x 2 inches, head 25 to 35 mm, on matte or glossy photo-quality paper, one colour photo taken in the last six months. Everything this route requires.

Separately: the US visa programme, which is not the same thing

A printed US visa photo is also 2 x 2 inches with a 25 to 35 mm head — but the visa pages publish a whole set of extra figures that the passport pages do not: eyes 28 to 35 mm from the bottom on a printed photo, and for a digital image a square aspect ratio between 600 x 600 and 1200 x 1200 pixels, 24 bits per pixel in the sRGB colour space, JPEG only, 240 kB or less, and 300 pixels per inch when scanning an existing print. U.S. Department of State, visa digital image requirements(opens in a new tab).

Those are the numbers that have leaked into nearly every "passport photo requirements" article online. They are visa requirements. We do not support visa photos, and we do not check a passport photo against a visa number.

No: renewing a US passport online

The online renewal route publishes no size at all. No inches, no millimetres, no pixel dimensions, no aspect ratio, no head measurement, no percentage of the frame. What it publishes is a file specification — JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC or HEIF, between 54 KB and 10 MB — and a framing instruction in words: centre your head and shoulders, and "If you're not sure, leave a little extra room around your face. You can crop your photo when you upload it." U.S. Department of State, Uploading a Digital Photo(opens in a new tab).

State crops the photo itself, inside its own application. Cropping to a 2 x 2 square before you upload removes the room its cropper expects, and it means the file you send is no longer the original file State asked for. This is why we hand online-renewal customers their own file back untouched instead of producing a square for them. What the online route actually requires.

What the right size does not settle

Size is the easiest requirement to satisfy and the least likely to be the reason an application is held up. State's own summary of the problem, on both passport pages: "Unacceptable photos are the number one reason why we put passport applications on hold." Everything in this list applies to a perfectly sized photo.

• Background. Plain white or off-white, free of shadows, textures or objects.
• Lighting and shadows. Even light on the face, no shadow on the face or on the wall, not so bright that the image is overexposed and not so dim that it is underexposed.
• Sharpness. "Not blurry, grainy, or pixelated", and with no visible printer dots. A photocopy or a scan of a print is not accepted.
• Expression and eyes. Facing the camera without tilting your head, both eyes open and visible, mouth closed. The paper route allows a closed-mouth smile; the online route words it differently and asks you to avoid showing teeth.
• Glasses, hats and head coverings. Glasses off, and not resting on your head. Hats off. A religious or medical head covering is allowed with a signed statement, in one colour, with no pattern and no small holes, and your full face still visible.
• Clothing. No uniform, no clothing that looks like a uniform, no camouflage. No headphones or wireless earpieces.
• Age of the photo. Taken in the last six months, on both routes.
• No digital changes. "Submit the original, unchanged photo." "Do not change your photo using computer software, phone apps or filters, or artificial intelligence." Both pages add: "We check all photos to ensure you are not using artificial intelligence tools."
• Condition of the print. No holes, creases or smudges, and nothing written on the front.

Our free check measures the ones a machine can measure — format, size, colour, lighting, focus, background evenness and plainness, the capture date in the file's metadata — and says plainly which ones it did not check, including head size, because there is no face detector in this release. It never reports a gap as a pass.

Pixels, DPI and colour space

The passport pages publish none of the three. There is no pixel dimension, no aspect ratio, no colour space and no numeric resolution figure anywhere on either of them. The only mention of DPI is a printing tip: increase your printer's resolution setting, alongside the advice to use glossy or matte photo paper. That is a tip about a printer, not a requirement about a file.

So the practical answer to "how many pixels do I need" on the paper route is: enough that the print is sharp at 2 x 2 inches and shows no visible pixels or printer dots, which any modern phone camera at its highest quality setting will manage. We report the pixel dimensions we measure and we do not grade them, because there is no published number to grade them against.

Printing it

A 2 x 2 inch photo is usually printed six-up on a 4 x 6 inch sheet, which is what a photo booth or a one-hour print counter charges a few cents for. Note that 4 x 6 inches and 10 x 15 cm are not the same size, so a sheet laid out for one will not land correctly on the other. How to print a 2 x 2 inch photo covers the paper, the sheet and the things that go wrong.