Rules compared across countries
What ICAO Doc 9303 actually says about passport photos
Every commercial photo site invokes “the ICAO standard”. This page quotes it. The document is Doc 9303, Part 3 — Specifications Common to all MRTDs, Eighth Edition, 2021, and the passages below are its own words, separated from ours.
The 70–80% head rule is real, and it is measured against the finished passport page rather than the photograph you hand over. Glasses, expression, head coverings, background colour and photo age are not specified in Part 3 at all — those come from national authorities, which is why they contradict each other.
What Doc 9303 is
- “Part 3 defines specifications that are common to TD1, TD2 and TD3 size machine readable travel documents (MRTDs) including those necessary for global interoperability using visual inspection and machine readable (optical character recognition) means. Detailed specifications applicable to each form factor appear in Doc 9303, Parts 4 through 7.”
Our reading. Doc 9303 specifies the document — how a passport must be built so that any border can read it. It is not an instruction sheet for the person in the photo booth. That distinction explains most of what follows.
Head height: the 70–80% rule
- “The printed portrait shall be centred within Zone V, with the crown (top of the head ignoring any hair) nearest the top edge of the MRTD. The crown-to-chin portion of the facial image shall be 70 to 80 per cent of the longest dimension defined for Zone V, maintaining the aspect ratio between the crown-to-chin and ear-to-ear details of the face of the holder. The 70 to 80 per cent requirement may mean cropping the picture so that not all the hair is visible.”
Our reading. The 70–80% is measured against Zone V — the portrait area of the finished passport page, and Zone V’s dimensions are defined in Parts 4 to 7, not here. So this is a rule about what the issuing authority prints. It reaches you only because most authorities pass it on, and some of them pass on a different number instead.
The size ICAO recommends — and why your country ignores it
- “Properties of the submitted portrait. Submitted portraits should be 45.0 mm x 35.0 mm (1.77 in x 1.38 in) in dimension. This will provide adequate resolution for scaling to required size for use on the MRTD while having adequate resolution for facial recognition purposes.”
Our reading. This is the only place Doc 9303 Part 3 puts a millimetre figure on the photograph you supply, and it says should, not shall — a recommendation, addressed to States designing an application process. Every printed size on this site was set nationally, and they do not agree with each other or with this figure.
- “Submitted portraits should have a minimum width of 35 mm. The inter eye distance (IED) should be at least 10 mm.”
Our reading. The nearest thing Part 3 has to an eye rule is a resolution floor — eyes at least 10 mm apart. There is no “eyes must sit 50–60% up the frame” anywhere in this part; where a country states one, that country wrote it.
What the photograph itself must be
- “To ensure compatibility with facial recognition systems, portrait capturing shall comply with relevant specifications outlined in [ISO/IEC 39794-5].”
Our reading. This single sentence is where the photo-booth rules went. Doc 9303 hands portrait capture to a separate ISO standard, which is sold separately and is not a public document — one reason the internet quotes “ICAO” for rules ICAO never printed.
- “The displayed facial image, whether provided in paper or digital formal, shall:”
- “depict a true likeness of the rightful holder of the MRTD; and”
- “not be digitally altered or enhanced to change the subject’s appearance in any way.”
Our reading. The rule an old or beautified photograph actually breaks. Doc 9303 sets no expiry date on a photograph — but a picture that no longer looks like you fails this line, and that is what a counter is applying when it turns one away.
- “No portion of the background or the subject’s garments should be printed fully white and details should be apparent in dark shadow regions.”
Our reading. Doc 9303 never names a background colour. What it asks for is detail: a background that has not been blown out to pure white. Authorities that demand plain white, plain grey or pale blue are each adding their own rule on top of this one.
- “Border. A border or frame shall not be used to outline a digitally printed reproduction.”
Our reading. The one composition rule in Part 3 that reaches the applicant almost word for word — several of the authorities we have read refuse a bordered photograph in exactly these terms.
What Doc 9303 Part 3 does not say
We read the Eighth Edition through, looking for each of these. None of them is in Part 3. Where the specification does address portrait capture, it points elsewhere:
- “The photograph shall comply with the appropriate definitions set out in [ISO/IEC 39794-5].”
Our reading. Everything in the list below is governed by that reference, or by the issuing State, and not by the text of Doc 9303 Part 3.
- Glasses. The words spectacles, eyeglasses and glasses do not appear in Part 3 — and the authorities we have read split on it, some banning them outright. What each authority writes about glasses.
- Expression and smiling. No rule on expression, mouth or teeth. What each authority writes about smiling.
- Head coverings. No rule, religious or otherwise. What each authority writes about head coverings.
- How old the photograph may be. No time limit anywhere in Part 3. The six-month rule people call international was written country by country, and one authority we read says three months instead. What each authority writes about photo age.
- Background colour. No colour named, only the printing requirement quoted above.
- How many photographs to hand in, and what to pay. Not a Doc 9303 question at all — the authorities set that themselves.
Where the authorities we have read depart from ICAO
Generated from the head-height rule recorded on each country page, not written by hand. 9 of the 12 routes that publish a head rule state one the ICAO 70–80% band does not fit inside — follow ICAO there and the crop can be refused.
- 🇮🇳 India Passport · DPC / official forms — 80–85 % of image height
- 🇮🇳 India Visa — 25–35 mm
- 🇵🇰 Pakistan Passport · online application — 29–34 mm
- 🇮🇩 Indonesia Visa — 50–60 % of image height
- 🇳🇬 Nigeria Passport — 50–69 % of image height
- 🇻🇳 Vietnam Passport — 75 % of photo area
- 🇯🇵 Japan Passport — 32–36 mm
- 🇰🇷 South Korea Passport — 32–36 mm
- 🇪🇸 Spain Passport — 50 % of photo area
Every other route on this site publishes no head-height rule at all. Silence is not agreement with ICAO, and we do not record it as such.
Authorities that point at ICAO themselves
2 of the pages we have read name ICAO in their own words — which sends the applicant to a document that, as above, does not answer the question they arrived with.
- 🇮🇳 India — Guidelines for ICAO Compliant Photographs for Passport Applications (Passport Seva) (mportal.passportindia.gov.in)
- 🇮🇹 Italy — You bring a printed photo to the questura. Italy does not publish millimetre dimensions — it names the ICAO format instead. (www.poliziadistato.it)
The document itself
Doc 9303 — Machine Readable Travel Documents, Part 3: Specifications Common to all MRTDs, Eighth Edition, 2021 icao.int checked 2026-09-03
ICAO reorganised its publications site and the original PDF now returns 404. The link above is the Internet Archive's copy of that file, which is the version every quotation on this page was read from. Part 3 is one of twelve parts; the portrait passages are in section 3.9.
Questions people actually ask
Does ICAO set the size of a passport photo?
Not as a requirement. Doc 9303 Part 3 says submitted portraits “should be 45.0 mm x 35.0 mm (1.77 in x 1.38 in) in dimension” — a recommendation, in a section about scanning photographs people hand in. The size you must actually supply is set by the issuing authority, and several of the ones we have read ask for something else entirely.
What is the ICAO 70–80% rule?
It is one sentence in Doc 9303 Part 3: the crown-to-chin portion of the facial image shall be 70 to 80 per cent of the longest dimension defined for Zone V. Zone V is the portrait area of the finished passport page, not the photograph you hand over, so the rule constrains what the authority prints rather than what you print.
Does ICAO say anything about glasses, smiling or head coverings?
Not in Part 3. We read the 2021 edition through and it contains no rule on glasses, expression, head coverings or how old a photograph may be; for portrait capture it defers to ISO/IEC 39794-5. Every glasses or smiling rule you have been told is “the international standard” was in fact written by a national authority, and they disagree with each other.
Can I follow ICAO and be accepted anywhere?
No. Of the 12 routes in our data that publish a head-size rule, 9 state a rule the ICAO 70–80% band does not fit inside, so an ICAO-derived crop can land outside what that authority accepts.
Check your own photo against the rule that applies to you
The tool measures head height against the figure on your country's own page, and falls back to the ICAO 70–80% band only where no national rule exists — labelled as a fallback, not as the rule.
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