New Zealand Passport Photo — 35 × 45 mm
35 × 45 mm at 300 dpi (413 × 531 px), plain light grey or white.
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About the New Zealand Passport Photo — 35 × 45 mm
New Zealand does something no other country on this list does: for an online passport renewal it invites you to take the photograph yourself, on a phone, with someone else holding the camera. The Department of Internal Affairs then runs an automated check and tells you immediately whether the image passed, which removes the weeks-long feedback loop that makes photograph requirements so frustrating elsewhere.
On paper the frame runs 35 across and 45 down, sizing the face between 32 and 36 millimetres. The background should be plain and light — light grey or white — with no shadow behind the head and nothing in frame but you.
Because the check is automated, it is literal. It measures head height, it looks for shadows, it detects glasses and it flags any expression that is not neutral. There is no officer to apply judgement, which cuts both ways: a marginal photograph that a human would wave through is rejected, and a compliant one is accepted in seconds.
The NZeTA — the electronic travel authority required of visa-waiver visitors — uses a photograph too, taken in the app, and its requirements are looser. This page is for the passport and for visa applications, where the full specification applies.
Anything more than six months old is refused. No hats, no sunglasses, no headphones, hair clear of the eyes. Glasses should come off; the guidance is explicit that they are the most common cause of automated failure.
Check the Department of Internal Affairs website for the current rules and the online checker.
How to use it
- 1Have someone photograph you from about two metres away against a plain, evenly lit wall, with your glasses off.
- 2Keep New Zealand selected for the 35 × 45 frame and the 32–36 mm head range.
- 3Replace the background with light grey if there is any shadow or pattern behind you.
- 4Check the guide copy carefully — the automated check measures rather than eyeballs, so marginal is the same as wrong.
- 5Save the single image and run it through the official online checker before you pay for anything.
Questions
- Can I really take my own passport photograph here?
- For an online renewal, yes — the Department of Internal Affairs accepts a self-supplied digital photograph and checks it automatically. Have someone else hold the camera at a distance: an arm's-length selfie distorts the face and fails.
- Why do glasses fail so often?
- Because the automated check looks for any reflection on the lens and any frame crossing the eye, and indoor lighting produces both. The guidance recommends removing them, and that is the reliable answer.
- Is the NZeTA photograph the same?
- No — the travel authority is captured in the app and its requirements are considerably looser. This specification is for passports and for visa applications, which are checked against the full standard.
- How far should the camera be?
- About one and a half to two metres, with the camera at eye level. Closer than that and the lens enlarges the nose and narrows the ears, which is the distortion that makes selfies unusable for documents.