Maldives Passport Photo Requirements & Guidelines

A Maldives passport photo looks standard on paper — 35 × 45 mm, pure white background, neutral face. What catches people is subtler: the passport prints your photo in greyscale, so anything light-coloured — a white shirt, a pale hijab — blends into the white background and the head loses its outline. The fix is counterintuitive: wear something dark.

Two more Maldives specifics matter. The photo must be very recent — within the last 30 days — and you submit a soft copy alongside the print. This guide covers all three, following the IMUGA / Maldives Immigration standard.

The specification, at a glance

Why you should wear dark clothing

Here's the detail almost no one plans for. The Maldives e-passport reproduces the photo in greyscale, and the requirement is explicit that the background must contrast with your face and hair. Against a pure white background, a white or cream top — or a pale hijab — turns nearly invisible once the colour is stripped out, leaving your head with no defined edge.

So dress for the greyscale result, not the colour original: wear a darker top, and if you wear a hijab, choose a darker, plain one. It's the single easiest way to avoid a "blends into background" rejection that most guides never mention.

Size, head, and background

The frame and head

A 35 × 45 mm photo — note that the official page phrases it "45 × 45 mm" as height × width, which is the same portrait shape. Your head should measure 32–36 mm from chin to the top of the head (not the top of the hair), filling roughly 70–80% of the frame, centred and facing the camera. Children and infants have relaxed ranges.

Pure white, sharp, no borders

The background must be pure white, evenly lit, in sharp focus, with no patterns, borders, shadows, reflections, or red-eye. Combined with the greyscale-contrast rule above, that means: white wall, dark clothing, even light, no shadow behind the head.

Glasses, expression, and head coverings

Glasses

Regular glasses are allowed only if the frames don't cover your eyes and there's no glare on the lenses. Sunglasses and tinted lenses are prohibited. If your frames are thick or reflective, removing them is the safer choice.

Expression and makeup

Keep a neutral expression — mouth closed, no smiling or pouting, eyes open and looking straight at the camera, not covered by hair or frames. Maldives also specifically bars heavy or "deceiving" makeup that changes your appearance.

Head coverings

Everyday hats and coverings aren't allowed, but a religious hijab is permitted, provided the full face stays visible from chin to top of head. As above, a darker hijab reads better in greyscale.

The 30-day rule and the soft copy

Two Maldives requirements are easy to miss. First, the photo must have been taken within the last 30 days — a much shorter window than the usual six months, so an old photo won't do. Second, you must provide a printed copy on quality paper at 600 DPI or higher, plus a soft (digital) copy — the print alone isn't enough.

Because there's no published pixel dimension, the practical target is a high-resolution image that prints cleanly at 35 × 45 mm and can also be handed over as a file. You can prepare both from the same source so the print and the soft copy match exactly.

How the Maldives compares

The 35 × 45 mm white-background format is shared across South Asia and beyond, but the Maldives adds its own twists: the greyscale print (hence dark clothing), the tight 30-day recency, and the soft-copy-plus-print requirement. The frame travels; those rules don't. If you're preparing photos for more than one country, our passport photo tool for 150+ countries applies each country's own requirements to the same source image.

The short version

A Maldives passport photo is 35 × 45 mm on pure white, head 32–36 mm, neutral, taken within 30 days, submitted as a print plus a soft copy. The detail that decides most photos is the greyscale print — wear a dark top (and a dark hijab if you wear one) so your head keeps a clean outline against the white.