France passport photo requirements 2026 — why white backgrounds fail
French biometric photos require light grey or light blue background, never white. Every rule, the no-glasses no-smile gotchas, where to submit.
What French authorities check
French biometric passport, ID-card and driving-licence photos follow the spec at service-public.fr. The single biggest gotcha: France does NOT accept a white background — the spec demands «fond uni, clair (bleu clair ou gris clair)», light blue or light grey only. White is a guaranteed rejection. Live spec on our France passport photo page.
The numbers
- Print size: 35 × 45 mm. Standard EU.
- Face height: 32–36 mm (chin to crown).
- Resolution: 600 DPI minimum — same as Germany, the highest in the EU.
- Background: light grey OR light blue — never white. The rejection trap.
- Maximum age: 6 months.
- No glasses — even fully transparent frames have been rejected since 2009.
- Mouth closed, neutral expression, no smile. France is famously strict on this. Even a slight smile fails.
Where you submit it
Passeport, CNI and permis de conduire all run through appointments at your local mairie via service-public.fr. Some mairies also accept ANTS-portal photo upload at 600 DPI for online pre-validation.
Take it at home
Daylight, plain light-grey or light-blue wall, phone at eye level. Our AI measures face height in mm, crops to the exact 32–36 mm French window, replaces the background with light grey (the safer of the two), and ships at 600 DPI ready for either mairie submission or ANTS upload — start your French passport photo.