Lebanon Passport Photo Requirements & Guidelines

On the numbers, a Lebanon passport photo is unremarkable: 35 × 45 mm, plain white background, neutral face — the same ICAO-based format used across much of the world, applied through General Security. If that were the whole story, this would be a short guide.

But Lebanon adds something almost no other country does: the printed photo often has to be certified and stamped by your local mukhtar — the neighbourhood registrar — before it's accepted. That administrative step, not the photo itself, is what most surprises applicants. This guide covers both.

The specification, at a glance

The mukhtar stamp: Lebanon's real requirement

Here's the part to plan around. In many cases the passport photos you submit must be original prints, certified by the mukhtar of your area — signed and stamped, sometimes alongside your name, register number and place of registered residence. An unstamped photo, or a photo reused from an old ID, can be turned away regardless of how good the image is.

Two practical consequences:

• The photos must be freshly printed originals, not reused or scanned copies.
• You'll typically need two identical prints for the certification and the file.

None of that changes what the *image* has to look like — but it does mean you want a clean, correct photo you can print twice and take to be stamped. Get the image right first, and you can create your Lebanon passport photo sized to 35 × 45 mm so both prints are identical and compliant before you visit the mukhtar.

The image itself

Size and head

A 35 × 45 mm colour photo, head roughly 32–36 mm chin to crown — about 70–80% of the frame — centred, facing the camera, on a plain white background with even lighting and no shadows. General Security follows the ICAO norm here rather than publishing its own millimetre table, so the standard biometric proportions apply.

Glasses — the daily-wear rule

Lebanon's position on glasses is more permissive than much of the region: you may keep them if you wear them every day, provided there's no glare or reflection, the lenses aren't tinted, and the frames don't cover your eyes. Sunglasses are out except for medical reasons. If your everyday glasses catch the light, removing them is still the safer choice.

Expression

Neutral, mouth closed, both eyes open and clearly visible, face square to the camera. Standard, but worth confirming before you print two copies.

Print and digital

The printed photo

Two identical 35 × 45 mm colour prints on photo paper, freshly made, taken within the last three to six months — and ready for mukhtar certification. Lebanon's biometric passport is applied for in person at General Security centres.

Digital submission

Lebanon does not publish a public online photo-upload portal with pixel or file-size specs — the photo is handled as physical prints at the centre. So there's no separate digital file to prepare; focus on clean, correctly sized prints.

How Lebanon compares

Lebanon's 35 × 45 mm white-background format is shared across the region and Europe, and its glasses rule is closer to the EU's "daily wear" allowance than to the outright bans in nearby Gulf states. What's genuinely Lebanese is the mukhtar certification — an administrative layer most countries don't have. The photo travels; the paperwork doesn't. Our passport photo tool for 150+ countries handles the image side for each country from the same source photo.

The short version

The Lebanon passport photo is a straightforward 35 × 45 mm on white with a 32–36 mm head — glasses allowed only if you wear them daily and they don't glare. The part to plan for isn't the picture, it's the process: two fresh, identical prints, certified and stamped by your mukhtar. Get the image right, print twice, and handle the certification.