Government & ID Photos • 8 min read
Passport Photo Size 45x35 mm: Pakistan Visa and Passport Specs
Forty-five millimetres high by thirty-five wide, face filling most of the frame, plain white background, no older than six months. That is the specification Pakistan's online visa system publishes, and it is the format most other countries use too. Here is what each line of it means in pixels, and where the Pakistani paperwork asks for something different.
What the Pakistani Pages Actually Ask For
Three different official pages cover three different jobs, and people mix them up. The photograph guide for the Pakistan Online Visa System, run by NADRA, describes the image an applicant uploads with a visa application: 45 millimetres high by 35 millimetres wide, your face taking up 70 to 80 percent of the photograph, a plain white background, and a picture no more than six months old. That same guide states that photographs can be up to a maximum of 350 kilobytes.
The Directorate General of Immigration and Passports describes a different object for its online passport services: an original scan of a colour picture with a white background, specified as 350 by 467 pixels, in JPEG or JPG format and not more than 3 MB. That is a scan of a printed photograph, which is why the pixel figure and the print figure do not line up.
For the passport booklet itself, the immigration and passports directory says the applicant attends a counter and the photograph is captured there along with the biometrics, so an applicant renewing or issuing a booklet at a centre brings nothing to upload. Read the instruction on the specific form you are filling in; it is the only one that binds you.
| Purpose | Stated size | Extra conditions | Source page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online visa application photo | 45 mm high x 35 mm wide | Face 70-80 percent, plain white background, under six months old, up to 350 KB | NADRA visa photograph guide |
| Online passport service scan | 350 x 467 pixels | Original scan, colour, white background, JPEG or JPG, not more than 3 MB | DGIP online passport service |
| Passport booklet biometrics | Captured at the counter | Applicant attends; photograph and fingerprints taken on site | DGIP passport process |
Note: None of these pages publish a DPI value. Where a form demands 300 DPI, that requirement comes from the portal's own validation or from the studio printing the sheet, not from the specification quoted above.
Millimetres to Pixels: Two Answers, One Arithmetic
Pixels are not a physical unit, so a millimetre spec converts to whatever density you choose. The formula is pixels = millimetres divided by 25.4 multiplied by DPI, because an inch is exactly 25.4 millimetres.
At the density print studios work at, 300 DPI, a 35 x 45 mm frame is 413 pixels wide by 531 pixels high. That is the number that shows up in most photo editors and in the presets of the background changer, and it is the size to use if a form asks for a 300 DPI file and a 35 x 45 mm shape.
The 350 x 467 pixel figure from the passport service page is a different thing: it fixes the pixel count outright, so the density becomes whatever falls out. 350 pixels across 35 millimetres works out to about 254 DPI, and the ratio is 1 to 1.33 rather than the 1 to 1.29 of a 35 x 45 mm print. Those are not the same shape. A photograph cropped tightly for the visa frame will lose a sliver of forehead or chin when it is forced into the 350 x 467 box, so crop to whichever spec the field you are filling in actually states.
- 35 x 45 mm at 300 DPI = 413 x 531 pixels.
- 35 x 45 mm at 72 DPI = 99 x 128 pixels, which is why a low-density file looks soft when the print is checked.
- 350 x 467 pixels is roughly 254 DPI across 35 mm, not 300.
- Face 70 to 80 percent of the frame means measuring chin to crown against the picture height, not against the width.
What the Frame Has to Contain
The head-size rule is the one people fail. The instruction gives the face 70 to 80 percent of the photograph's height, so a 531-pixel-tall frame should carry roughly 372 to 425 pixels from chin to crown. Stand too close to the camera and the head overshoots the band; stand too far back and a full-body crop leaves a head the checker reads as too small.
The practical way to hit it is to shoot from about a metre away at eye level, with shoulders square to the lens and the face lit evenly, then crop rather than move closer. Cropping down into a well-lit, sharp original keeps detail; a photo taken too close distorts proportion and cannot be fixed afterwards.
The background requirement is plain white, which is what makes the corner-sampling approach in the background changer work: it measures the colour at the edges of your picture and replaces pixels that fall within the tolerance of it. A wall with a shadow gradient, a door frame, or furniture behind one shoulder is not a plain background, and no tolerance setting will make it one.
Note: No editing step can make a photograph acceptable on its own. The consistency check on the portal is the authority, and it can reject a file that measures correctly for reasons the specification does not enumerate, including glare, motion blur and head tilt.
Prepare the File Yourself, in This Order
- Take the original properly — Front-facing, eyes open and level with the camera, neutral expression, plain light wall behind, even daylight, no glasses reflecting the window.
- Crop to the shape the form names — 35:45 for the visa photograph, square-ish 350:467 for the scan field. The aspect ratio cropper takes a numeric ratio; the passport photo tool has 413 x 531 as a built-in preset.
- Fix the background before the size — Repaint the backdrop to white while the frame is still generous, then crop. Doing it in the other order leaves you rescuing edge pixels you have already cut into.
- Set the exact pixel dimensions — Type 413 and 531, or 350 and 467, in the resizer. It takes whole pixels only and has no millimetre field, which is why the conversion above matters.
- Write the density if the form asks — The DPI converter rewrites the header to 300 without resampling, and shows the print size that results, so you can confirm the millimetre figure before downloading.
- Fit the byte ceiling last — The compressor's target-size mode searches quality and then dimensions until the file lands under the limit. Aim under 350,000 bytes rather than under 350 KiB if you are not sure which the portal means.
- Read the numbers back off the result — Open the downloaded file and check dimensions, byte size and density. Ten seconds here is cheaper than a rejected application.
Why Applications Get Photographed Again
- Head outside the 70 to 80 percent band, usually too large because the photo was taken at arm's length.
- Background that is grey, cream, shadowed, or a wall with an object in it, rather than plain white.
- A picture that is more than six months old, which the visa guide explicitly rules out.
- A file over the stated ceiling, or a screenshot and a re-saved social copy that has been recompressed twice and gone soft.
- Shadows across the face, heavy retouching, or a tilted head, all of which interfere with the biometric measurement the frame exists to supply.
Note: These are the conditions the official pages state or imply. Treat a rejection notice from the portal as the more specific instruction and follow it over any guide, including this one.
Questions About the 45 x 35 mm Photograph
- Is it 45x35 or 35x45, and does the order matter?
The NADRA visa guide words it as 45 millimetres high by 35 millimetres wide, so height comes first in that sentence. The shape is a portrait rectangle either way, narrower than it is tall. Write it as height x width when you fill in a form so nobody has to guess which edge you meant.
- Do I need 300 DPI for a Pakistani visa photo?
The visa guide publishes a millimetre size, a face proportion, a background colour, an age limit and a 350 KB ceiling; it does not state a DPI. The online passport service names a pixel count and a 3 MB limit instead. If a specific field asks for 300 DPI, set it, because the field is checking what it says it checks.
- Can I take my own passport photograph at home?
For the online uploads, yes, and the steps above are the whole procedure. For a booklet issued at a centre, the process page says the photograph is captured at the counter with the biometrics, so a home photo does not substitute for it. Some applicants also find that a self-shot picture fails the consistency check even when the measurements are right.
- Will a photo editor's passport preset match these specs?
Most desktop and online presets default to 413 x 531 pixels, which is the 35 x 45 mm frame at 300 DPI, and that is a reasonable choice when a form gives no pixel number. Where a service states its own pixel count, use that instead of a preset, because the shape differs.
Where These Numbers Come From
Keep Reading
Three guides that pick up where this one leaves off:
- US Visa Photo: 2x2 Inch, 600x600 Pixels and the 240 KB Limit — The other photograph specification people are handed, where the frame is square and the byte cap is 240 KB.
- How to Change Image DPI to 300 for Print and Visa Forms — A millimetre size only becomes pixels through a density, and that step is worth understanding before a form demands it.
- How to Compress Images to Exact File Sizes (50KB, 100KB, 200KB) — A 350 KB ceiling is a byte target like any other, and the order you hit it in decides how the face survives.