Australian passport photo — 35–40 × 45–50 mm, face 32–36 mm, and the Passport Office's printing rules

An Australian passport needs 2 colour photos that are 35–40 mm wide and 45–50 mm high, with your face measuring 32–36 mm from chin to crown, on a plain white or light grey background, taken less than 6 months ago and not retouched. The Australian Passport Office (APO) also says how they must be printed: dye-sublimation colour prints, not inkjet, on heavy glossy paper of at least 200 gsm. It recommends a professional photo provider and advises against online photo services and mobile apps. That advice matters more than any crop, so it comes first on this page.

The official specification

Source: the APO’s Passport photos page, read on 21 October 2026.

Read this before you use the tool

The APO’s advice and this tool pull in different directions, so here is the plain version. The office recommends getting the photo from a professional provider, and it says it does not recommend online photo services or mobile apps. A browser tool like this one falls closer to the second group than the first, even though it runs on your own device and uploads nothing. On top of that, a print from a home inkjet printer breaks the printing rule outright.

So for an Australian passport itself, a post office or photo studio is the route the APO points you to. The tool is still useful for:

• seeing what a correctly framed face looks like inside 45 mm before you visit a provider;
• checking a print you have been given, by comparing it with the guide positions below;
• other forms that ask for a 35 × 45 mm photo and do not set the APO’s printing rules.

Steps in the tool

1. Add a clear, front-facing photo. On this page the Photo type is already set to the Australia preset.
2. Read the warning box under the rules. It repeats the APO points above.
3. With Show face-position guides ticked, move the photo by dragging or with Zoom, Horizontal position and Vertical position. Put the top of the head on the yellow line and the chin in the blue band. The dashed oval and the centre line help you keep the face straight and centred.
4. Leave Background on Keep the original. A plain wall photographed well is better than a replaced background, and the APO lists an edited background among its unacceptable examples.
5. Choose the Print sheet format (4 × 6 in JPEG, 4 × 6 in PDF or Both) and press Make passport photos.

What the Australia preset produces

The single photo is 413 × 531 pixels, which is 35 × 45 mm at 300 DPI. The guides put the crown about 4.1 mm below the top edge and the chin between 36.1 and 40.1 mm, so a chin anywhere in the band gives a face of 32 to 36 mm. There is no separate digital file, because the APO does not publish an upload size: online renewal pulls your photo from a provider’s system instead. The 4 × 6 inch sheet holds 8 copies, in two rows of four, separated by 2 mm with grey cut lines.

Why not 40 × 50 mm? Every size in the range is allowed, but the face rule does not grow with the photo. A 32–36 mm face in a 50 mm frame looks smaller and leaves more empty space around the head, and the smaller size fits more copies on a sheet.

Printing to the APO’s standard

Dye sublimation is a heat-based process used by dedicated photo printers, and it is different from the inkjet printing most home printers use. If you take the sheet anywhere to print, ask whether the machine is dye sublimation and whether the paper is glossy and at least 200 gsm. Print at actual size and check one photo with a ruler: 45 mm tall, 35 mm wide. Keep the photos clean. Ink marks, streaks and lines are all on the APO’s list of faults.

Guarantor, referee or neither

Who vouches for your photo depends on how you apply:

A guarantor or referee must be an adult Australian citizen who has known you for more than 12 months. They need a current Australian passport with at least 2 years’ validity, or 12 months on the electoral roll at their current address. They cannot be related to you, be your partner, live with you, or be an Australian Passport Officer or an Australia Post employee.

Online renewal and photo codes

Adults whose last passport meets the eligibility rules can renew fully online. The APO says that in this process you retrieve your digital passport photo with a photo code from your photo provider. Its examples show where the code appears on ID Station and Australia Post photo sheets. You cannot use a file made in this tool for that step. If you are not eligible, or the code does not work, the standard renewal uses printed photos handed in at a participating post office.

Faults the APO shows as unacceptable

The Passport photos page has a gallery of rejected examples. Among them:

• smiling, or a subtle expression instead of a neutral one;
• retouching or skin smoothing, and too much make-up;
• the camera too close (distortion), or framing too close or too far;
• uneven lighting, red eye, a blurred, grainy or low-resolution image;
• the head turned, tilted up or down, or the eyes looking away;
• glasses, a hat, a patterned head covering, hair over the eyes or wireless earbuds;
• another object or a parent’s hand in the photo.

What the tool does not check

Its guides come from the 32–36 mm rule, not from detecting your face. It cannot see your expression, shadows, reflections or a head tilt, and it does not know how old the photo is or how it will be printed. If a medical condition stops you meeting a guideline, the APO asks for a medical certificate or a completed B-11 form.

Related tools

• Passport Photo Maker holds every country preset, including UK and Schengen.
• Image Cropper crops to any custom ratio, if a form wants 40 × 50 mm.
• HEIC to JPG converts iPhone photos first.
• DPI Checker reads the print resolution stored in a file.

Rules were read on 21 October 2026 and can change. Check passports.gov.au before you apply.