PAN Card Photo and Signature Size: Pixels, KB and cm

Most PAN card photo resize problems start the same way: the upload screen rejects a 3 or 4 MB phone photo and doesn’t say much about why. The two agencies that process PAN applications, Protean (formerly NSDL e-Gov) and UTIITSL, want small JPG files at fixed physical sizes, and Protean’s own pages don’t all give the same KB limit. Here is what each official page says, the pixel sizes those specs work out to, and how to get your photo and signature under the limit.

Quick answer: For a Protean (NSDL) PAN application, upload a colour JPG photo of 3.5 x 2.5 cm (about 197 x 276 pixels at 200 DPI) and a signature of 2 x 4.5 cm (about 354 x 157 pixels). The e-Sign route allows up to 50 KB each; the DSC route allows 20 KB for the photo and 10 KB for the signature. Aadhaar e-KYC needs no upload.

PAN card photo and signature size at a glance

These figures come from Protean’s guidelines for DSC-based PAN applications and its step-by-step guide to applying online with e-Sign. The pixel column is my own arithmetic: centimetres ÷ 2.54 × DPI.

Notice the two KB columns. If you don’t know which route your application will take, aim for the stricter DSC numbers: a photo under 20 KB and a signature under 10 KB pass both. That isn’t hard. A 197 x 276 pixel JPG is a small image and usually lands well under 20 KB at decent quality.

One wording difference: the e-Sign guide says “lesser than 200 dpi”, while the DSC table lists 200 DPI. I’ve used 200 for the pixel column.

Protean (NSDL) PAN photo: what the upload expects

On the Protean portal you choose how to submit: Aadhaar e-KYC, scanned images with e-Sign, or physical documents. Only the scanned-images route asks you to upload a photo and signature. The photo must be a colour JPG, 3.5 cm high and 2.5 cm wide, with your face clearly visible. Protean’s article on scanned documents warns that dark or pixelated images get rejected.

That 3.5 x 2.5 cm frame has a 5:7 shape. A phone photo is usually 3:4, so crop to 5:7 before you resize, or your face will look slightly stretched or squashed.

PAN card signature size

The signature is a wide strip, 2 cm high by 4.5 cm wide. Sign on plain white paper with a black pen, then scan or photograph it in good light. Crop close around the signature so it fills most of the frame; a tiny signature in the middle of a big white area looks faint once it’s shrunk to 354 x 157 pixels.

A signature is mostly white, so it compresses well and 10 KB is easy. If it comes out grey and blotchy, blame the scan (dim light, a shadow from the phone), not the compression.

UTIITSL PAN photo and signature

UTIITSL’s guidelines for submitting a PAN application say the photo and signature are uploaded as JPEG/JPG files and the supporting documents as PDF, from your computer or from DigiLocker, “as per required specification”. I couldn’t find the KB or pixel limits on a public UTIITSL page, so I won’t quote a number that only third-party sites repeat. The limits appear on the upload screen itself. Start with the Protean-style photo (3.5 x 2.5 cm, under 20 KB) and signature (2 x 4.5 cm, under 10 KB) and adjust if the screen says otherwise.

Aadhaar e-KYC and the e-PAN: no upload at all

If you have Aadhaar with a linked mobile number and you’ve never had a PAN, the Instant e-PAN FAQ on the Income Tax portal is clear: you don’t upload a scanned photo or signature for e-KYC, and the e-PAN is free. The photo comes from your Aadhaar record. The same goes for the Aadhaar e-KYC route on Protean, where you choose whether the Aadhaar photo is printed on the card. So if your Aadhaar photo is acceptable to you, this route skips the whole resizing problem.

On Protean, if you say you don’t need a physical card, you get only the digitally signed e-PAN by email. The e-PAN is a valid PAN.

Paper forms: which photo size to paste

The current PAN application forms are notified under rule 158 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026: Form 93 for Indian citizens, Form 94 for Indian entities, and Forms 95 and 96 for foreign citizens and entities. Form 93 asks for two recent colour photographs of 4.5 x 3.5 cm on a white background, signed across the left photo so the signature sits partly on the photo and partly on the form.

Protean’s own PAN FAQ still says 3.5 x 2.5 cm, and that size is also used for the photo on the acknowledgment of an online application. My advice: measure the photo box on the form you actually have and print to that size. Don’t staple or pin the photos, and keep the right-hand photo free of any mark.

For prints, use 300 DPI. A 4.5 x 3.5 cm photo is 413 x 531 pixels at 300 DPI, the same as a standard passport-size photo, and a 3.5 x 2.5 cm photo is 295 x 413 pixels.

How to resize a photo for a PAN card

1. Open the PAN card photo preset. It’s set to 2.5 x 3.5 cm at 200 DPI, JPG, with a 20 KB target.
2. Drop in your photo and use Crop with the 5:7 ratio so the frame matches the PAN shape. Keep your head and shoulders in view.
3. Download. The tool searches for the highest JPG quality that fits under the target, so you get a 197 x 276 pixel JPG that fits the 20 KB target.
4. For the signature, open the PAN card signature preset (4.5 x 2 cm, 200 DPI, under 10 KB). Use Crop in freeform mode to trim the white space around your signature first, so it isn’t distorted.

If your portal shows a different limit, change the target size, or use the 20 KB, 50 KB or 10 KB tools. The resize in KB page takes any number.

Everything runs in your browser, so your photo and signature are never uploaded to ResizeAny. See how we test the tool for details.

Why PAN photo uploads get rejected

Usually it’s size: a 2 MB phone photo against a 50 KB limit. Then format, because some phones save HEIC or PNG and the portal wants .jpg. Then a photo squeezed into the frame without cropping, so the face looks stretched. And dark or blurry photos: Protean notes that the card image is only as clear as the photo you give it.

For more on hitting a strict KB limit without wrecking the image, see how to reduce an image to 20 KB, 50 KB or 100 KB.