German ID Card Photo (Personalausweis) 35x45mm Requirements and Checker

Read This First: Who Can Still Bring Their Own Photo

Since 1 May 2025, ID and passport offices inside Germany no longer accept paper photos. The photo must either be taken at the office itself or by a registered photo studio that uploads it to a secure cloud and gives you a printed data-matrix code. A photo you took yourself cannot be used for a Personalausweis applied for in Germany.

German missions abroad are the exception: embassies and consulates still accept a conventional printed photo, 45mm high by 35mm wide, portrait and borderless, until they have their own capture equipment. If you are applying from outside Germany, this page and the checker apply to you.

• Applying in Germany: use the office's photo machine or a registered studio. Do not buy a photo to bring along.
• Applying at a German embassy or consulate: a printed 35×45mm photo is still accepted.
• Checking a photo before a studio visit is fine, but the studio's upload is what the office uses.

Official German Personalausweis Photo Requirements

The biometric requirements are the same wherever the photo is taken. They are published on the Federal Ministry of the Interior's Personalausweisportal.

• Size: 35×45mm portrait (413×531px at 300 DPI), no border.
• Head height: 70–80% of the image height, chin to crown.
• Background: plain, light and evenly lit, with no shadows or patterns.
• Face centred and straight to the camera, neutral expression, mouth closed.
• Eyes open and clearly visible, with no reflections or shadows across them.
• No headwear except for religious reasons.
• Recent photo that shows how you look now.

What the Checker Does for a Consular Application

For an application at a German mission abroad, VisaPhotoCheck crops to 35×45mm, measures the head against the 70–80% range, cleans the background and exports a 413×531px JPEG you can have printed.