China Passport & Visa Photos

Chinese documents run on a family of fixed sizes: 33×48mm for passports and travel permits, 26×32mm for ID cards and social-security cards, 22×32mm for driving licences. Exam and application systems add their own pixel sizes, from 295×413 for civil-service exams to 480×640 for the gaokao.

All fourteen Chinese document pages appear below with their exact print or pixel size. The studio produces the right file for each system from one photo.

33×48 and 35×45 formats

The four border documents — passport, visa, and the Hong Kong-Macau and Taiwan travel permits — use the 33×48 mm frame, two millimetres narrower and three taller than the 35×45 mm print most of the world uses. A Schengen-style photo does not fit. The head runs 28-33 mm from chin to crown with hair counted in. The spec leaves a 3-5 mm margin above it.

Pose measurements

The visa spec writes posture down as figures: head width 15-22 mm, turn no more than 20 degrees off-centre, pitch no more than 25. Most countries leave this to a reviewer's eye. Here the numbers are published, and the same 28-33 mm band crosses over to the passport.

Domestic photo sizes

Domestic documents print small: the ID card at 26×32 mm, the driving licence at 22×32 mm with a 19-22 mm head, the hukou booklet and teacher-certification photos at the one-inch 25×35 mm, while the two-inch size is 35×49. The ID standard asks daily glasses wearers to keep them on, plain lenses, no glare.

Online pixel and file-size requirements

Upload routes count pixels and kilobytes. The online visa form takes a JPEG up to 354×472 px, sized between 40 KB and 120 KB. The CET exam asks for 144×192 px on blue, kept between 20 and 100 KB. The gaokao registration takes 480×640 px on white, at 20 to 39 KB. The civil-service system accepts 295×413 px on blue or red, and the postgrad entrance exam wants a 3:4 portrait on white or blue, ideally under 10 MB.

Local notice requirements

Provinces and exam boards publish their own specs, and several notices only say the head should fill about two-thirds of the frame. The residence permit has no national millimetre standard at all; Shanghai, for instance, publishes a 358×441 px image at 350 dpi. Read the notice for your city or exam first, then match it here.

Border document faults

A 35×45 mm print submitted for a 33×48 mm document, a head outside 28-33 mm, a margin tighter or looser than 3-5 mm: at the border-document counters these are measured faults.

Colour and file-size faults

Blue where the notice asks for white, red where it asks for blue, a JPEG over 120 KB or under 40 KB on the visa form: upload routes reject at the portal.

Pose and photo-editing faults

Faces turned past 20 degrees or pitched past 25, a smoothing app left on, red-eye from a flash: the millimetre faults get measured, and the others get noticed. On the ID card the glasses rule runs the other way — daily wearers keep them on.