German Passport Photo Size & Requirements

Germany changed how passport and ID photos are submitted on 1 May 2025. Under the new rule, a biometric photo has to be captured digitally, in person, either at a Bürgeramt (citizens' office) smart photo booth or a certified photo studio registered with Bundesdruckerei's encrypted transmission system. Printed photos, self-taken smartphone shots, and app-generated files are no longer accepted at all, even if they match the size and background spec exactly.

Confirmed via official municipal Bürgeramt notices (e.g. the City of Bochum's citizens' office), corroborated across multiple German local-government and news sources. This isn't a tightened digital-upload spec, like some countries have moved to, it's a full removal of the self-submission path.

What this tool is still genuinely useful for is checking your framing beforehand. Upload a test photo, line your head up against the 35×45mm / 32-36mm crown-to-chin guide, and get a sense of whether you're roughly in range before you pay for a Bürgeramt booth session or studio visit. It won't produce a file you can submit yourself, since that now has to come from an approved in-person capture.

If you just need the numbers, here they are in every unit people search for. The German passport, ID card (Personalausweis), and residence-permit photo size is 35 x 45mm, which converts to roughly 3.5 x 4.5cm or 1.38 x 1.77 inches. Head height, measured chin to crown, has to sit between 32mm and 36mm, meaning your face fills about 71-80% of the frame's height. This tool exports a reference file at 630x810 pixels so you have something concrete to line your face up against before your appointment.

These figures come from the same underlying German biometric photo standard used across passports, ID cards, and residence permits, so a photo checked against this spec works for whichever of those three documents you're applying for or renewing. What changed in 2025 is purely how the photo gets captured, not any of these dimensions.

Beyond the size, a compliant photo needs a plain, light-coloured background, light grey is the most commonly cited shade, a neutral expression with your mouth closed, and both eyes fully open and visible, with no hair, shadow, or glasses glare across them. Head coverings aren't allowed unless worn for religious or medical reasons, and even then your face has to stay visible from chin to hairline. If you wear glasses, clear, untinted lenses are fine as long as the frames don't cover any part of your eyes and there's no glare in the shot, dark or reflective lenses aren't accepted.

None of this is something you frame up yourself anymore. The Bürgeramt booth or certified studio handles lighting, background, and the biometric capture itself, your job beforehand is really just knowing what "in range" looks like so an obviously off angle or expression doesn't cost you a second appointment.

Your local Bürgeramt is the first place to check, many now have a "PointID" smart photo booth installed, typically around €6-7 per image. If yours doesn't yet, or you'd rather skip the appointment queue, certified photo studios registered with Bundesdruckerei's system offer the same digital capture and secure transmission, and a growing number of drugstore chains (dm, for instance) now offer it at in-store photo stations for a similar price. Call ahead or check your Bürgeramt's website first, since booth availability still varies by branch.

If you're a German citizen living abroad, your nearest German consulate or embassy handles passport and ID renewals for expats, and the same in-person biometric capture rule generally applies there too, some consulates run their own booth, others route you to a local partner studio. It's not the same as a US pharmacy photo counter or a generic passport-photo kiosk, those print a standard photo but aren't wired into Bundesdruckerei's transmission system, so check with your specific consulate before assuming a nearby photo shop will do.

Yes. A renewal goes through the same in-person capture as a first-time application, you can't reuse the photo from your expiring passport even if it still looks like you. Book your Bürgeramt or studio appointment as early as you can, appointment availability, not document processing, is usually the actual bottleneck, especially during summer travel season when renewal demand spikes. Standard processing commonly takes a few weeks once your application is in, and many offices offer an expedited Express service at a higher fee if you're cutting it close to a trip.

Whether you're renewing an existing passport, applying for your first one, or getting a Personalausweis or residence permit instead, the photo requirement described on this page is the same across all three, only the rest of the application paperwork differs.

The size and head-height figures are identical, 35×45mm with a 32-36mm head height, both drawn from the same German biometric standard. The difference is entirely in how the photo gets submitted: a Schengen visa application still runs through your destination consulate's own process, which may still accept a self-supplied photo depending on the consulate, while Germany's own passport and ID card now requires the in-person Bürgeramt or studio capture described above, with no exceptions for a self-taken file.

If you're applying for a Schengen visa rather than a German passport or ID card, see theSchengen visa photo page for that spec and submission process.