Head ratio in ID photos: 50-69% vs 70-80%

"Head ratio" is the single most common reason a technically perfect photo gets refused. It is also the least intuitive, because it has nothing to do with sharpness, lighting or resolution — it is purely about how much of the frame the head occupies.

What exactly is being measured

The measurement is from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head, including the hair. On the printed photo that is a millimetre figure; on a digital image it is expressed as a percentage of the total image height.

Note the two traps. "Top of the head" includes hair, so a tall hairstyle pushes the measurement up. And it is the head, not the face — the forehead counts, the neck does not.

The two standards

• 50%-69% — United States. Also 1 to 1 3/8 inches (25-35 mm) on the printed 2×2 inch photo. This is the most forgiving range in wide use.
• 70%-80% — Schengen, United Kingdom, Australia, most of Europe. On a 45 mm tall photo this works out to roughly 32-36 mm.
• 50%-70% — India's e-Visa. Frequently misquoted as 80% by third-party sites; the official portal's guidance is the narrower-sounding but actually more generous range.
• 60%-75% — Japan, with about 7-7.5 mm of blank space above the head.

Why the difference exists

It comes down to how much clothing and shoulder the authority wants visible. A 50%-69% frame shows head, neck and shoulders — useful for matching against a full-body encounter at a border desk. A 70%-80% frame concentrates almost entirely on the face, prioritising the biometric match.

Neither is "more correct". What matters is that you use the range belonging to the document you are submitting, and that you do not carry one country's habit into another's application.

How to measure your photo

1. Open the image at full size and note its pixel height.
2. Measure from the chin to the top of the hair, in pixels. Any basic image viewer or even a screenshot tool with a crop overlay will do.
3. Divide the head measurement by the total height.
4. Compare with the target range.

If the result is 0.44, you are looking at a typical photo shop crop and every standard above will reject it. The fix is not to reshoot — it is to crop tighter around the head, then scale back up to the required output dimensions.

Fixing the ratio without reshooting

Because the ratio is relative, you can correct it in post as long as you have enough surrounding image to work with.

• Head too small: crop in towards the head, then resize to the required pixel dimensions. Quality holds up well as long as the original is at least 1200 px on the long edge.
• Head too large: you need more image around the head. If the original is a tight crop with no room, you have to reshoot — this is the one case where there is no workaround.

Doing it in the browser

Our ID photo tool draws a dashed guide box on the canvas marking the 70%-80% region used by Schengen and the UK, plus a centre line. Drag and zoom the photo until the head sits inside the box, then export. Nothing is uploaded — the whole crop happens on your own device.

Pick the right preset first: the specification library lists the exact size, pixel range and head ratio for each document, with a link to the official source.