Germany Passport (Biometric) Photo Maker

The Germany Passport (Biometric) photo is 35×45 mm on light grey in print, and 413×531 px where the Germany form wants an upload. Bundesdruckerei / Federal Foreign Office puts the head at 71–80% of the height, chin to crown, and the eyes at 58–68% up from the bottom edge.

Light grey background (no white) per ICAO 9303 biometric standard. Neutral expression, mouth closed. Head 32–36 mm chin to crown. Glasses only if non-tinted and no reflection.

Since 1 May 2025 Germany does not accept a paper photograph for a passport or identity card at all. Bundesdruckerei announced the change and city authorities repeat it: the photograph must reach the issuing office digitally, by one of two routes. Either a certified photographer takes it and uploads it through a secured channel, handing you a DataMatrix code to bring to the counter, or you have it taken at a photo terminal installed in the Bürgerbüro itself. Munich, for one, lists terminals at every Bürgerbüro location and at its immigration and naturalisation service point. That reshapes what a page like this is for in the German case: preparing a file at home is useful for checking that your framing will pass, and it is not a submission route. On measurements the Fotomustertafel, the official specimen chart, is precise in a way few authorities are. Total size 35 by 45 millimetres, face height 70 to 80 per cent of the photograph, which it states as 32 to 36 millimetres from the point of the chin to the top of the head, and a rejection threshold set well outside that: below 27 millimetres or above 40. Those two expressions of the same rule do not quite agree, and it is worth knowing which one this page follows. On the 45 millimetre frame the sheet itself mandates, 70 per cent is 31.5 millimetres and 32 millimetres is 71.1, so the percentage is half a millimetre looser than the millimetres printed beside it. This page follows the millimetres and targets 71 to 80 per cent, which is 31.95 to 36 millimetres, because the millimetre figure is the one the sheet repeats when it sets out what actually gets a photograph rejected.

Turning up with printed photographs is now the expensive mistake, and it is a new one, so instructions written before May 2025 will still tell you to bring them. Check what your local office wants before you go. On the picture itself, white backgrounds are the classic failure, since German guidance asks for a single-colour light background and points at neutral light grey, and this specification rules white out by name. Glasses may be worn but reflections, tinted lenses and sunglasses are not permitted and the frame must not cross the eyes, which in practice sends most applicants to the counter without them. Smiling is excluded explicitly rather than merely discouraged. Note that the eye band recorded above, 58 to 68 per cent, is the narrowest vertical target in this catalogue and every other specification here uses something wider, so a face positioned by eye rather than by measurement is more likely to sit outside it than on any other page in the set.

MiniPx composes the cutout onto #E8E8E8 rather than white and encodes 413×531 JPEG in this tab. Figures come from Bundesdruckerei / Federal Foreign Office — auswaertiges-amt.de. If one has gone stale, contact@minipx.com.