China Visa Photo Rules: Specs, Background, Cheap Prints

Your passport photo is a 2×2-inch square. China’s visa photo is 33 by 48 millimeters. That is the whole difference most people miss, and it is the reason a photo that passed at home gets rejected here before you even finish talking.

TL;DR — the 30-second version

• Size: 33 x 48 mm, printed on a plain white background.
• Face fills roughly two-thirds of the frame, head centered, both ears visible.
• Mouth closed, no glasses, no shadows, no headwear, no date stamp.
• Photo must be taken within the last 6 months.
• Get it cheap: visa-center booth (roughly 20-30 yuan) or a neighborhood print shop (5-10 yuan a sheet, sent over WeChat).
• Keep the digital JPEG under 1 MB for the online form — the paper and the file get checked separately.

The short answer

The short answer: bring a 33 x 48 mm photo, white background, face centered and taking up about two-thirds of the frame, mouth closed, no glasses, printed in the last six months. Most rejections happen because people nailed the face and skipped the rectangle.

The size that actually matters

China’s visa photo is 33 millimeters wide by 48 tall — a portrait rectangle, not the US 2×2-inch square (51 x 51 mm) your passport uses, and not the 35 x 45 mm most of Europe uses. Do not bring those. The counter scanner reads proportions first, and a wrong-shape file bounces before a human even looks at it.

Inside the rectangle the rule is simple: head in the middle, head big. Chin and hairline comfortably inside the frame, a face a clerk could pick out of a crowd. That passes.

The 10-second pre-print checklist

• Background: plain white, evenly lit, no shadow behind your head.
• Face: both ears visible, hair off the forehead, eyes open.
• Expression: mouth closed. A tight polite smile can pass; visible teeth usually do not.
• Glasses: skip them if you can. Thin frames sometimes pass, but glare gets photos bounced.
• Headwear: none, unless religious — then check with the center first.
• File: no watermark from the photo app, no date stamp burned into the corner.

Where to get one, cheap

1. The visa center’s own booth. Most centers have a photo service near the entrance. Pay, sit, wait ninety seconds, walk out with correctly sized prints. Expect roughly 20-30 yuan. Not the cheapest, but the most boring option, and boring is worth money when the queue is long.

2. A neighborhood print shop. Locals call these dayin dian (print shops), and they are everywhere. Send your file over WeChat, and the shop prints while you wait; a full sheet of six photos costs about 5-10 yuan. Say you need the qianzheng zhaopian (visa photo) size, 33 by 48 mm, and they know it instantly.

3. A phone app, then the printer. Photo apps push the background to pure white and crop to the exact ratio. Export at 300 dpi, check the white is truly white, then print. This is our usual move when we have ten minutes.

The digital file trap

The online application form wants the photo as a JPEG, and most form validators cap the file around 1 MB. Export too big and the form rejects it; crop sloppy and the same error comes back. Fix the file before you queue, because the counter checks the digital version too. Being told “please retake” after an hour in line is the most expensive free lesson in the process.

Kids and edge cases

Babies do not need to sit still. Eyes open, face visible, no parent’s hands in the frame — you can hold the child up and shoot. Nobody at the counter minds the maneuvering.

The 6-month rule applies to everyone. We have watched people hand over a perfectly printed photo from two years ago and get waved back to the booth. Reusing an old ID photo is the classic rookie mistake.

Official source

Rules change, so check before you print. The China Visa Application Service Center (visaforchina.org) publishes current photo and application requirements, and your nearest embassy page repeats them. Five minutes of reading beats one rejected application.

Quick answers

Q: Can I use my regular passport photo for the China visa? A: Usually no. Most passports use a 2×2-inch or 35 x 45 mm photo; the visa form wants 33 x 48 mm. Different rectangle, different file.

Q: Can I get the photo taken at the visa center itself? A: Yes. Nearly every center has an on-site booth for about 20-30 yuan, and it prints to the exact spec — a fine fallback if yours gets bounced.

Q: Do my glasses have to come off? A: They usually do. Reflection is the problem, not the glasses themselves. If you can last one photo without them, do it.

Q: How old can the photo be? A: Six months or less. Older photos get rejected on sight, no matter how good they look.

Editorial review: EasternReset Team · Snapshot: 2026-09. Found an error? Email us.