PAN Card Photo and Signature Size

Protean (formerly NSDL e-Gov) publishes one table for the scans that go with an online PAN application. Photograph and signature are both 200 DPI, colour and JPEG; the photograph is capped at 20 KB and measured as 3.5X2.5 cms, the signature at 10 KB and 2X4.5 cms. Proof documents differ: black and white, PDF/A or JPEG, up to 300KB per page.

The page does not say which figure is the height. Read as width × height, the photo would lie on its side and the signature would stand up like a column, so both must be height × width.

The table gives maximums only, with no minimum file size. Protean’s explainer article on the e-Sign scan route is looser, quoting 50 KB for each image and a 5 cm x 2.5 cm photo. Files made to 20 KB and 10 KB pass both pages, so work to the stricter table.

Protean gives no pixel count, so the pixels come from arithmetic: centimetres ÷ 2.54 × 200. The photo’s 2.5 cm width is 196.9 pixels and its 3.5 cm height 275.6, which round to 197 × 276; the signature’s 4.5 by 2 cm becomes 354 × 157. Sites that print 355 × 158 rounded both figures up.

Make each file in two passes: resize in cm at 200 DPI with Crop to fill, then compress to 20 KB for the photo or 10 KB for the signature.

Only the routes that work from scans. Protean’s explainers describe three: e-KYC, where the photograph is pulled from your Aadhaar record and no signature image is taken (the physical card arrives with a blank strip to sign); scanned images signed through e-Sign, where you upload photo, signature and proofs; and the physical route, by post. The DSC route that carries the 20 KB and 10 KB table is a scan-upload route too.

UTIITSL’s online guidelines describe paper. You fill in and pay online, print the form, affix two (same) photographs of 4.5cms X 3.5cms, sign across the left-hand photo and in the bottom right box on page 2, then hand in or post it with copies of your proofs at a UTIITSL regional office. No KB figure applies to a print.

UTIITSL’s FAQ also lists paperless modes (e-KYC & e-Sign, e-Sign scanned based, DSC scanned based) but publishes no pixel or KB figure for their uploads. Files made to Protean’s table also fit under the 30 KB and 60 KB that resizer sites quote for UTIITSL.

Not from Protean or UTIITSL. It is a square, while both agencies publish upright rectangles: 3.5X2.5 cms for Protean’s upload and 4.5cms X 3.5cms for UTIITSL’s print. It fits neither as a print either, since 213 pixels is about 2.7 cm at 200 DPI and 1.8 cm at 300.

Resizer sites repeat it, usually tagged “UTI” with 300 DPI and a 30 KB cap, often beside 600 DPI and 60 KB for the signature. The one site found that cites a source for its 213 preset links to an old state-government portal document, not to either agency, and that link did not open in October 2026. Another photo page that ranks for this search gives a PAN photo file size of 1 MB to 15 MB, at least fifty times Protean’s cap.

If an upload screen states its own size, follow the screen; otherwise the 197 × 276 photo under 20 KB is the size with an official line behind it.

Blur in a 10 KB signature usually comes from too few pixels rather than from compression: a photo of a whole sheet leaves the name a few dozen pixels tall, and a tiny crop gets stretched. Start with the signature filling most of the frame.

If the result card shows fewer than 354 pixels across, no quality setting fitted and the compressor shrank the strip; paper texture and shadows are the usual cause, so retake the photo. If the resized strip is already under 10 KB, the compressor says so and that file can be uploaded as it is.

Keep the camera or scanner in colour mode, since Protean lists the signature as a colour file. Compressing drops the 200 DPI label written at the resize step; to restore it, set 200 in the DPI converter last, which rewrites only the header.