Japan passport photo · 35 × 45 mm

Checked and laid out to the official Ministry of Foreign Affairs specification. Rules taken from the MOFA photo standards notice, dated 2025-03, checked by us on 2026-08-16.

Japan is the most precisely specified authority we cover — it fixes the face height (34 ±2 mm), the space above the head (4 ±2 mm) and a zone around the eyes that nothing may intrude into. The tolerance is only ±5.9%, tighter than the US, so check the guide lines on the preview. MOFA prohibits image processing that changes how you look, and nothing in its text permits replacing a background, so we only crop, position and size. MOFA publishes these rules in Japanese only; the English below is our rendering, and the original Japanese is quoted in our source record.

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Head and shoulders in frame, with clear space above the hair — the head should fill about half the photo, not all of it.

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Official specification

Finished size	35 × 45 mm
Head height (chin to crown)	32 – 36 mm
Eye height	not published by this authority
Background	white (recommended) or a conventional pale blue — plain, shadow-free, and no gradient
File formats	JPG / JPEG
File size	20 KB – 600 KB
Taken within	the last 6 months

Full rules

Taken within 6 months of the date of application.
35 x 45 mm with no border, showing only the applicant, facing front.
Face height, chin to crown, 34 ±2 mm; 4 ±2 mm of space above the top of the head. If the aspect ratio is hard to keep, MOFA says to give priority to the width.
No headwear, except where the passport office accepts a religious or medical reason and the outline of the face is still visible.
No background and no shadows. White is recommended; a conventional pale blue background is also accepted, but gradients are not. Patterned cloth, textured cloth, dark backgrounds and objects in the background are all listed as unacceptable.
The boundary between your head, hair and clothing and the background must be clearly distinguishable.
The outline of the face must be exposed — turtlenecks, hoods and anything covering the chin or jaw are unacceptable, as is hair over the eyes.
Nothing may intrude into the eye area (a 17 ±2 mm by 7 ±2 mm zone around the eyes) — no hair, mask, part of a spectacle frame, false eyelashes or eyelash extensions, and no shadow from them.
MOFA recommends removing glasses. If worn, tinted lenses, reflections and shadows are unacceptable, and frames must not cover the eyes. Sunglasses and non-prescription tinted glasses are not accepted.
Coloured or circle contact lenses and red eye from a flash are unacceptable, and coloured lenses may cause trouble at immigration.
Face straight to the camera. A tilted head, a turned head, an off-centre position, or raised mouth corners that make you look significantly different from your actual appearance are all unacceptable.
Image processing that changes your image — enlarging the eyes, skin whitening, correcting facial parts, moles or wrinkles — is unacceptable, and so is a mirror-flipped photo (some camera apps flip by default).
Out-of-focus or blurred photos, shine or unevenness on the face, compression noise, jaggies, printer dots and ink bleed are all unacceptable.
If your hair is voluminous, take a width equal to the distance from your eyes to your chin, measure it upwards from the eyes, and treat that point as the crown when sizing the photo.
Online application from within Japan: the uploaded photo file must be jpg and no larger than 600 KB.
Online application from abroad: jpg, jpeg, bmp or png, between 20 KB and 2 MB — and note it is compressed on upload, so a file inside that range can still error if it exceeds the limit after compression.
For photos handed in on paper, write the applicant's name on the reverse without the writing showing through to the front.

Sources

https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/100171389.pdf
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan — Consular Affairs Bureau, Passport Division · page updated 2025-03 · we checked it 2026-08-16

1 申請者（請求者）本人のみが正面を向いて撮影されたもの／2. 申請日から6か月以内に撮影されたもの／3. 縁なしで右記寸法を満たすもの（顔の寸法は頭頂から顎まで。縦横比の維持が難しい場合は横幅を優先すること。）／4. 無帽であるもの／5. 背景（影を含む）がないもの／6. 輪郭が露出しているもの ... 45／35／34±2／4±2／17±2／7±2（単位：㎜）... 背景は白色を推奨します。従来からの薄い青等の背景も受け付けます。(グラデーションは不可) ... 目を大きく見せたり、美白処理、顔パーツやほくろ、しわ等を修正する等して、本人のイメージを変えたものは不適当です。また、左右反転した写真は不適当です。

https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/toko/passport/page24_002222.html
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan — online application photo guidance · page updated 2025-03-03 · we checked it 2026-08-16

国内でオンライン申請をする場合　ファイル形式：jpg　ファイル容量：600キロバイト以内／国外でオンライン申請をする場合　ファイル形式：jpg・jpeg・bmp・png　ファイル容量：20キロバイトから2メガバイト（ファイル容量が指定範囲内であってもアップロード時に圧縮され、圧縮後のファイル容量が規定容量を上回る場合、エラーとなります。）

https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/toko/passport/ic_photo.html
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan — passport photo standards · page updated 2025-03-03 · we checked it 2026-08-16

旅券用写真の規格は、渡航等に関する国際機関である国際民間航空機関（ICAO）の勧告に基づいて定められています。

Questions

What are the Japanese passport photo requirements?

35 x 45 mm with no border, taken within 6 months, showing only you facing the camera. The face measures 34 ±2 mm from the crown to the bottom of the chin, with 4 ±2 mm of space above the head. No headwear, no background and no shadows.

Does Japan require a white background?

MOFA recommends white and also accepts a conventional pale blue background, but not a gradient. Patterned or textured cloth, dark backgrounds, objects behind you and an unclear boundary between your hair or clothing and the background are all listed as unacceptable.

What is the eye area rule?

MOFA marks out a zone around the eyes, roughly 17 mm by 7 mm, that nothing may intrude into — no hair, no mask, no part of a spectacle frame, no false eyelashes or extensions, and no shadow cast by any of them.

Can I retouch the photo or use a beauty filter?

No. Enlarging the eyes, skin whitening and correcting facial parts, moles or wrinkles are all listed as unacceptable because they change your image. A mirror-flipped photo is also rejected, which matters because some phone camera apps flip by default.

What file size does the online application accept?

Applying online from inside Japan, the photo must be jpg and no larger than 600 KB. Applying online from abroad, jpg, jpeg, bmp or png between 20 KB and 2 MB — and it is compressed on upload, so a file inside the range can still fail if it is too large after compression. We produce a file valid for both.

What if I have a lot of hair?

MOFA's guidance is to take the distance from your eyes to your chin, measure that same distance upwards from your eyes, and treat that point as the crown when sizing the photo. We do not apply that automatically, so check the crown guide line on the preview.

Our own assumptions

MOFA publishes these requirements in Japanese only. The rules above are our English rendering; the original Japanese is kept verbatim in our source record, and that original is what governs.
The file size band we work to, 20 KB–600 KB, is the intersection of the two official upload channels: no more than 600 KB when applying online from inside Japan, and 20 KB–2 MB when applying online from abroad. A file inside that band is valid for both.
Japan recommends white but also accepts a conventional pale blue background, so our background check tolerates more colour than the US or Singapore ones. A genuine pale blue studio background may still come back as “close but not quite” rather than a clean pass — that is our threshold being cautious, not MOFA rejecting it.
Head height is laid out at 34.0 mm, the centre of the official 34 ±2 mm. Japan's ±5.9% tolerance is tighter than the US, so there is no room to bias the target — if facial landmarks are not detected, the fallback estimate is not accurate enough to guarantee the official range and we say so.
The chin is measured by 68-point facial landmarks; the crown comes from the top of the cut-out outline. Assumed accuracy ±5%, calibrated only on synthetic fixtures.
MOFA's guidance for voluminous hair — measure the eye-to-chin distance upwards from the eyes and treat that as the crown — is not something we apply automatically. Check the crown guide line on the preview if you have a large hairstyle.

Where the authority does not specify something, we say so rather than pretending it does. The points above are our engineering choices, not official requirements.