Baby and child passport photos: which rules are relaxed

The rule that matters most

For babies and toddlers many countries relax some of the adult rules. What you can almost never skip:

• Face visible from chin to crown.No hat, no pacifier, no parent's hand in the frame.
• Plain background. The same colour rule as for adults: light grey or white, depending on the country.
• Eyes open and looking at the camera, unless your country makes an exception for the very young.

How much is relaxed differs per country. Australia, for example, allows an open mouth under 3, and Poland is more lenient for children up to 5 (closed eyes or an open mouth).

The trick: white sheet on the floor

Lay your baby on their back on a plain white or light grey sheet. Stand over them and shoot straight down. This solves four problems at once:

1. Background is automatically uniform (the sheet)
2. Baby can't flop sideways (they're flat)
3. You can take many photos quickly while they look up
4. Eyes naturally follow your face above the camera

Tip: hold a small toy or your phone's torch beside the camera to keep the eyes pointing up.

How many tries you'll need

Plan for a lot of photos. Babies blink, look away, close their mouth, open it. At home you can keep trying at your own pace and pick the best one, which is harder at a photographer with a crying baby.

Smaller face sizes for children

Some countries set a separate face-height range for children:

• Netherlands: up to age 10, face height 19-30 mm (adults 26-30 mm).
• Germany: under 10, face height 27-30 mm (adults 32-36 mm).
• Switzerland: under 11, face height at least 23 mm (adults 29-34 mm).

Take your child's passport photo at home. For these countries you can mark the photo as a child's photo, and we use the smaller face range.