Mauritius Passport Photo Requirements & Guidelines

Most passport photo advice stops at size and background. For Mauritius, the detail that quietly fails photos is the finish: the Passport and Immigration Office requires matt prints, not glossy, and a shiny finish is a common reason a photo is turned away. It's the kind of thing a high-street booth gets wrong by default.

The size is a familiar 35 × 45 mm on a light background, but Mauritius states it as a *range* and adds an in-person, police-certified process. This guide covers all of it, following the official application form P.F.136.

The specification, at a glance

The matt-finish rule

Here's the one to plan around. Mauritius explicitly asks for photos printed on a matt finish; a glossy print is a frequent rejection. Glossy paper reflects the scanner's light and creates hotspots, which is why the office won't accept it — and it's precisely what many quick-print booths and home photo printers default to.

So when you print, choose matt paper, and if you use a studio, say so explicitly. If you'd rather not gamble on a booth's default, you can create your Mauritius passport photo sized correctly and print two identical matt copies to attach to the form.

Size and head: a range, not a fixed number

The frame

Unusually, Mauritius specifies a range: 35–40 mm wide by 45–50 mm high. A standard 35 × 45 mm photo sits at the minimum of both and is fully compliant, so it's the safe size to use — but don't crop below it.

Head height

The head should measure 25–35 mm from chin to crown. There's no percentage rule published, but an undersized head — below about 25 mm in the frame — is a common failure, so make sure the face fills a healthy share of the photo rather than floating small in the middle.

Background, glasses, and expression

Light background

Mauritius asks for a plain light background rather than a strict pure white — white or off-white both work, evenly lit, with no shadow behind the head. The priority is a clean, uncluttered backdrop with clear separation from your face and hair.

Glasses

Glasses are permitted, provided your eyes remain clearly visible and unobstructed. If your frames are heavy or catch the light, removing them avoids any doubt.

Expression and head coverings

Show the full face with a neutral expression — mouth closed, eyes wide open, facing straight at the camera. Hats aren't allowed; a headscarf is accepted for religious reasons as long as the face is clear.

The process: paper form, in person, police-certified

Mauritius passports are applied for in person at the Passport and Immigration Office in Port Louis — there's no online photo upload. You attach two identical matt prints to the paper form P.F.136, and your identity and address must be certified by the local Police before submission.

Because there's no digital pathway or pixel spec, the whole job comes down to good prints: correctly sized, matt, on a light background, taken within the last six months.

How Mauritius compares

Mauritius shares the 35 × 45 mm light-background format with much of the world, but its matt-only print rule, range-based sizing, and police-certified paper process are its own. The size travels; the finish and the paperwork don't. If you're preparing photos for more than one country, our passport photo tool for 150+ countries applies each country's own rules to the same source image.

The short version

A Mauritius passport photo is 35 × 45 mm (at the minimum of a 35–40 × 45–50 mm range) on a plain light background, full face, neutral. The details that decide it are the matt finish — never glossy — and two identical prints attached to the police-certified form P.F.136. Get the print right and the rest is routine.