Passport photo with glasses: 2026 rules by country
Where you can keep your glasses on for a passport photo, where you absolutely cannot, and what counts as a valid medical waiver. Country-by-country breakdown for 2026.
If you wear glasses every day, the obvious question when you have to take a passport photo is whether you can keep them on. The straightforward answer for almost every country in 2026 is no — take them off. But the details matter because a few jurisdictions still allow them, the medical-waiver process varies, and sunglasses are never allowed anywhere.
This guide breaks down what each country we cover actually enforces in 2026, plus how to handle the practical problems (indentation marks on your nose, light reflections, eyes irritated by contacts).
The short version
| Country | Glasses allowed? | Medical waiver accepted? |
|---|---|---|
| United States | No | Yes, with signed doctor’s note |
| United Kingdom | No | Yes, with medical evidence |
| Canada | No | Yes, with medical certificate |
| Australia | Sometimes (see below) | Yes |
| India | No | Yes |
| Germany | No (ICAO/Schengen) | Yes |
| France | No (ICAO/Schengen) | Yes |
| Italy | No (ICAO/Schengen) | Yes |
| Spain | No (ICAO/Schengen) | Yes |
| Netherlands | No (ICAO/Schengen) | Yes |
| Japan | No | Limited cases only |
| South Korea | No | Yes |
| Singapore | No | Yes |
| Mexico | No | Yes |
| Brazil | No | Yes |
This is the most consistent rule across passport offices worldwide. The landmark moment was around 2016, when the ICAO standard (which most countries follow for biometric passports) explicitly prohibited prescription eyewear. The reason is purely biometric: glass frames obscure parts of the eye and brow region the matching algorithm needs.
Why the rule exists
A modern e-passport carries a digital biometric template of your face on the chip. The template is built from a small number of landmark points — corners of the eyes, position of the iris, line of the brows. Glasses do three things that interfere with the template:
- Frames cover the upper eye and eyebrow line. Even thin wire frames partially occlude the points the algorithm uses for the “head pose” measurement.
- Lenses bend the apparent position of the iris. Strong prescriptions visibly shift the position of the eye behind the lens. Light prescriptions less so, but the algorithm doesn’t know what your prescription is.
- Reflections from the lens block the iris entirely. Even a small highlight on the lens is enough to ruin the iris-matching pass.
The rule is uniform partly because the ICAO standard is uniform. Countries that issue ICAO-compliant biometric passports (which is now almost all of them) inherited the no-glasses rule together.
The medical-waiver process
If you genuinely cannot remove your glasses — for example, after recent eye surgery — most countries do accept a waiver. The process is boring but consistent:
United States: the State Department asks for a signed statement from your physician confirming you cannot remove the glasses for medical reasons. The statement must be on a letterhead, include your full name and date of birth, and be signed and dated. There is no specific form; a one-paragraph letter is fine.
United Kingdom: HM Passport Office wants medical evidence, not a specific form. A short letter from your eye doctor is enough. The letter has to confirm the medical condition specifically — “patient prefers to wear glasses” is not enough.
Canada: the Passport Canada office accepts a medical certificate from a licensed physician. Same content as the US: name, date of birth, signed and dated, on the doctor’s letterhead.
Australia: here the rule is more lenient than most. The DFAT specifies that “glasses can be worn for medical or religious reasons, provided the frames do not cover any part of the eye.” In practice this means thin-frame, reflection-free glasses are sometimes accepted without a waiver — but if the photo is rejected, you’ll need the medical letter.
Schengen countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, etc.): all follow the ICAO rule and reject glasses by default. Each country accepts a medical letter from a registered physician; in Germany the letter often needs to be from an Augenarzt (eye doctor specifically), not just a GP.
Japan: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs takes the strictest line. Even with a doctor’s note, eye glasses are often rejected if there’s any reflection on the lens. The MOFA’s own guidance recommends taking the photo without glasses regardless.
Sunglasses, tinted lenses, and transitions
Sunglasses are never allowed, in any country we cover, under any circumstances. There is no waiver process for sunglasses.
Tinted prescription lenses are a grey area. The technical rule is that the eyes must be “clearly visible.” Most countries reject visibly-tinted lenses; very lightly tinted lenses (the kind that darken in sunlight) often pass if you take the photo indoors where they don’t activate.
Transitions / photochromic lenses are a specific risk: they look clear indoors but the chemical layer in them is sometimes visible under flash or direct sunlight. If you wear photochromics, take the photo in a room with no direct light source (so the lenses don’t activate at all).
Practical problems when you remove glasses
If you wear glasses every day, taking them off for a photo introduces a few annoyances:
Red marks on the bridge of the nose. The most common one. The marks fade in about 10–15 minutes after you take the glasses off. Plan ahead: remove the glasses, do something else for fifteen minutes (read, make coffee), then take the photo. If the marks are still faintly visible in the final photo, our editor handles them under the “lighting / face equalize” pass — they look like shadows to the algorithm and get smoothed away.
Blurry view of where to look. Without your glasses on, the camera’s lens is hard to see. Two workarounds:
- Mark the lens with a small piece of bright tape (yellow sticky-note works) so you can find it without focusing.
- Use the timer and let someone tap the shutter for you so you can fix your eyes on the right spot from the start.
Squinting. Without correction, your eyes might naturally squint to focus. Relax — the photo just needs the eyes open, not in sharp focus on the camera. Look at the general direction of the lens and don’t try to focus harder than usual.
Dry / irritated eyes from contacts. If you swap to contact lenses for the photo and your eyes are irritated, let them settle for at least 10 minutes before taking the photo. Eye drops help.
What about glasses that are part of your appearance?
A reasonable concern: “I wear glasses every day, my passport photo without them doesn’t look like me.” Border officers are aware of this — passports are designed to be matched to the live person, and people regularly wear glasses while travelling with a glasses-less passport photo.
A few jurisdictions allow you to wear glasses at the border even though they’re not in the passport photo, as long as you can remove them on request. That’s the standard practice in every Schengen country, the US, Canada, and the UK. It’s not a problem.
Quick checklist before you take the photo
- Take the glasses off 15 minutes before to let nose marks fade.
- If you wear contacts: put them in at least 10 minutes before so the eyes aren’t irritated.
- Take the photo without flash — flash + bare eyes can produce red-eye, which fails for a different reason.
- Pick a frame where both eyes are fully open and looking at the lens. Photos with eyes drifting because of poor distance vision are common; take 5–6 frames and pick the best.
- If you have a medical waiver and want to keep the glasses on, attach the doctor’s letter to your application. Without the letter, the photo will be rejected.
If you’re not sure what your specific country requires, the country-by-country requirements page has the exact rule for each one, including the medical-waiver process where applicable.