How to take a German passport or ID card photo with your phone
Start with the rule that surprises most people: since 1 May 2025 the photo for a German passport, identity card or electronic residence permit has to reach the authority digitally. You either have it taken at the biometric terminal in the Bürgeramt itself, or a registered photo studio takes it and transmits it to the office over a secure channel, handing you a printout with a data-matrix code that the clerk scans at the counter. A photo you print at home is no longer part of that route.
Your phone still earns its place before the appointment. The geometry is published in the Fotomustertafel, the sample chart the ministry issues, and it is unforgiving: 35×45 mm with the face measuring 32–36 mm from the chin to the crown, so the head fills roughly 70–80% of the height. Framing yourself against that chart at home tells you in a minute what a studio will charge you to find out — whether your hair adds height the chart does not expect, whether your chin drops, whether you are leaning. The same 35×45 file is also what German employers, universities and foreign consulates in Germany ask for, and those still take an ordinary print.
Why a German passport photo comes back
The background is light grey by preference rather than white, and evenly lit — a white wall lit from one side reads as two different greys across the frame and the biometric check sees an edge that is not there.
The expression is neutral with the mouth closed; a smile moves the mouth corners far enough to change the measurements the software takes. Glasses are allowed but any glare on a lens, a thick frame across the eye or a tinted lens fails. A head covering is accepted for religious reasons as long as the face is fully visible from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead. Shadows behind the head, hair across the eyes and a tilted head are the other usual causes.
Where a German passport photo is used
The passport, the national ID card and the electronic residence permit all take the digital route described above; the 35×45 mm print keeps serving visa applications, driving-licence paperwork and everyday forms. The ministry's own sample chart is the official photo template (Fotomustertafel).
