Passport Photo — 50×60 mm NVİ and ICAO 9303

Turkish Passport Biometric Photo Size: 5×6 cm (50×60 mm), Head 32–36 mm (2026)

The International Civil Aviation Organization's ICAO 9303 "Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTD)" standard defines more than 30 parameters (face ratio, head tilt, eye contact, background uniformity, lighting, ban on retouching, etc.) for passport photos worldwide. Turkey's General Directorate of Civil Registration (NVİ) requires 50×60 mm biometric for passport applications; this is larger than the 35×45 mm ICAO base size because the NVİ scanner cannot capture 35×45 mm in full frame. Official source: NVİ Passport Services.

Only 1 biometric photo is enough for a Turkish passport — it is scanned at the civil registry and returned to you, not kept on file. Applications to other countries use the 35×45 mm ICAO base size: Schengen visa, 35×45 mm guide and US visa (square 51×51 mm) use different formats. From the same source shot, vesikalik.com.tr produces separate outputs for different countries. A single session in Turkey covers three documents: Turkish ID card and driving licence also use 50×60 mm. The comparative list is in the full table of document photo sizes.

Turkish Passport Application: Appointment, Payment and PTT Delivery

Turkish passport applications go to provincial/district Civil Registries for the general-use (bordo) passport, to Provincial Civil Registries only for hususi (green) and service-stamped (grey), and to consulates abroad. Slot bookings via five channels: randevu.nvi.gov.tr, e-Devlet Portal, NVİ Mobile, Nüfusmatik kiosks, or Alo 199. Walk-in applications are usually not accepted.

Before the appointment, the passport duty and booklet fee must be paid; payment channels: tax office, PTT branches, partner banks (İş Bank, Halkbank, Ziraat, etc.) or ivd.gib.gov.tr on the Revenue Administration site. Payment appears automatically in the system, so no receipt is required at the appointment. At the civil registry your 1 biometric photo is scanned and returned, fingerprint and signature captured digitally, and the passport form signed.

Turkish Passport Fees 2026: How Much Per Duration?

Fees are in effect from 1 January 2026 and unchanged during the year. Hususi (green) and Service-stamped (grey) passports are fully exempt from duty — only 1,351 TL booklet fee is paid. Students under 25, with a valid "Öğrenci Belgesi" (student certificate), are exempt from duty for up to a 5-year general-use passport (booklet fee still applies). For under-18 children the passport is issued for at most 5 years; if the legal guardian is not present at the application, a notarised consent is required.

Choose the duration based on your travel plan: for cross-border travel most countries require at least 6 months of remaining validity; a 6-month passport is cheapest for short trips, but the 10-year passport is the best per-year value (14,761 TL / 10 yr = ~1,476 TL/yr). These amounts do not include the photo the application requires; what the 50×60 mm digital file and print sheet cost is on the biometric photo price page. For current fees and exemptions: NVİ official application fees page.

Can You Change a Turkish Passport Photo? New Passport Application and Photo

No — the photo in an issued passport cannot be changed afterwards. According to the FAQ of NVİ's appointment system, "passport validity is not extended; a new passport is issued for every application", so to refresh your photo you file a new passport application at a civil registry office. Per the same source, when you renew a still-valid general-use (burgundy) passport, the remaining validity is transferred to the new passport; you must bring any previously issued passport that has not been cancelled. Book via randevu.nvi.gov.tr or Alo 199 and pay the duty and booklet fee before applying. The amounts by duration are in the fee table above; for a renewal that carries over remaining validity, the safest step is to confirm with Alo 199 which items you will pay.

The photo rule does not change at renewal: a Turkish passport application needs 1 biometric photo for every age group, 50×60 mm and taken within the last 6 months, and in NVİ's words "photocopies, computer-reproduced or non-biometric photos" are not accepted. The photo is scanned and returned at the appointment, and the printed passport reaches your address by PTT Kargo (timings in the delivery section below). You can prepare the new photo from a phone shot: the AI checks head ratio and background against ICAO criteria, cleans the backdrop and crops the frame to 50×60 mm; the print ships to your address within Turkey.

Passport Photo: Glasses, Headscarves and Rejection Reasons

NVİ's Biometric Photo page states the glasses rule clearly: "Eyes must be clearly visible, no reflections on lenses, no coloured lenses or sunglasses. The lens edge or frame must not cover the eyes or be thick enough to cover them." Glasses are conditionally allowed — the same rule applies to the driving licence and ID card photos; the full list by document and country is in the glasses in ID photos guide. Headscarf is allowed for religious reasons; forehead, jawline and face contour must stay fully visible.

Most frequent rejections at civil registries and consulates: (1) shadowed/patterned background, (2) smiling or open mouth, (3) turned or tilted head, (4) lens glare, (5) hair covering the face, (6) excessive retouching and make-up, (7) wrong 35×45 mm cut, (8) photo older than 6 months. The retouching line is clear: temporary reflection removal and background cleanup are accepted, but feature-altering filters, skin smoothing and removal of permanent marks invalidate the photo — the biometric face match breaks.

How Does At-Home Shooting and PTT Delivery Work?

A single selfie taken 30-50 cm in front of a plain white wall, phone held vertically at eye level, is enough — the wall colour does not matter because the BiRefNet segmentation model swaps the background to white automatically. vesikalik.com.tr maps the face with MediaPipe FaceLandmarker's 478-point mesh, measures the head angle via a pose matrix and re-crops the frame to the ICAO 9303 eye-to-eye distance standard. The output is a 591×709 pixel, 300 DPI PNG ready within seconds; a 10×15 print sheet with 4 photos of 50×60 mm ships to your address within Turkey.

After the NVİ appointment, the passport is personalised by the General Directorate and delivered by PTT Kargo to your declared residence address. Delivery time: 1 business day in 56 major provincial capitals, 2 business days in other provinces, up to 4 business days in districts. If no one is at the address, the passport waits 10 days at the PTT branch; after that it returns to the applying civil registry. From the same source photo, Schengen visa (35×45 mm), US visa (51×51 mm) or baby passport (with 0-6 age tolerances) versions can be produced in one click — one shoot covers several documents. Every document size is listed on the Turkish biometric photo sizes by document page. In İstanbul the passport application is filed at the district population office; the switchboards and delivery routes of all 39 districts are on the İstanbul passport photo page, with Küçükçekmece passport photo as an example district page.