Printing passport photos: at home or in a shop

A set of passport photos costs between GBP 12.99 and AUD 23.50 in a high street shop as of September 2026, and close to nothing at home once you own a printer. That gap is narrower than it looks, because in two of the countries people ask about most, a photo you print yourself is not acceptable at any price, and in a growing number of others nothing gets printed at all.

So the useful question is not what printing costs. It is whether your application wants a print in the first place.

What the shops charge

Every figure below was read on the retailer's own page on 2 September 2026. Prices move, so treat the date as part of the number.

In the United States, Walgreens charges USD 16.99 for two 2 by 2 inch prints and emails a digital copy with the purchase. FedEx Office charges USD 15.95 for two prints in both printed and digital form, and lets you approve the photo before it prints. The US Postal Service lists a USD 15.00 photo fee, which sits alongside a separate USD 35.00 acceptance fee for executing the application itself. That second figure is not a photo cost, and confusing the two is how people conclude that USPS is expensive.

AAA is a federation of regional clubs rather than one company, so there is no national price. The AAA Central Penn schedule is a worked example: USD 15 for one set of two photos for a non-member, USD 8.45 for a Classic member, one free set a year for a Plus member, and no charge at all for Premier members. Your own club may differ, which is the point.

In the United Kingdom, Max Spielmann and Timpson charge from GBP 12.99, the same for adults and children, and the printed photos include the digital code you enter during the online application. If HM Passport Office rejects the photo they retake it at no charge. The Post Office Check and Send service is GBP 16 for either the digital or the paper route, and its page states plainly that this does not include the cost of getting compliant photos taken.

In Australia, Australia Post charges AUD 23.50, raised from AUD 22.99 on 1 July 2026. That buys six 35 by 45 mm photos, or three at a larger size, walk in with no appointment, and a free second set if the photos are not accepted.

What we could not find out

Being honest about a price comparison means naming its holes.

We could not confirm a single price from CVS, Walmart in the United States, Boots, Shoppers Drug Mart, Walmart Canada, Staples Canada, London Drugs, Officeworks or Big W. Every one of those sites blocks automated access, so the figures circulating on comparison blogs are not ones we have checked and we will not repeat them. The UPS Store does list the service, but franchisees set their own prices and no number is published at all.

The Post Office does not publish a standalone price for a digital photo code, only the Check and Send fee, so the figure widely quoted for it is unverified here too.

Costco closed its in-store photo centres in 2021 and no longer lists a passport photo service, which is consistent across every third party we read, though we could not confirm it on a page Costco owns.

And no retailer we could reach publishes the price of an ordinary 4 by 6 inch or 10 by 15 cm print, which is the number you would need to work out the true cost of the home route. That gap is real and we have left it open rather than filled it with a guess.

How many fit on a sheet

This part is arithmetic rather than a sourced figure, so treat it as our own calculation.

A standard 4 by 6 inch print holds six US passport photos at 2 by 2 inches, arranged two across and three down. The same 10 by 15 cm sheet holds six photos at 35 by 45 mm in their normal orientation. Rotating them ninety degrees allows eight in theory, but leaves no margin to cut along, which is why commercial services ship six. Canada's larger 50 by 70 mm photo fits four to a sheet.

The cross-check is Australia Post, whose own product is six photos at 35 by 45 mm. When a retailer's count matches the arithmetic, the arithmetic is probably right.

Where printing at home is not allowed

Two countries make the home route impossible, and neither does it on grounds of quality.

Canada requires the photo to be taken in person by a commercial photographer or photo studio, and states directly that photos printed at home or on heavyweight paper are not accepted. The photographer also has to write the studio's name, complete address and the date on the back. That writing is an attestation by a business, and nothing you produce yourself can supply it. The Canadian requirements explain how this differs from the online renewal route, which does take a digital file.

Australia specifies the printing process itself: photos must be produced using dye sublimation rather than an inkjet printer, on heavy weight glossy paper of at least 200 gsm. A domestic inkjet cannot meet that, whatever paper you feed it. The Australian Passport Office also states that it does not recommend online passport photo services or mobile apps, on identity fraud grounds.

In both cases the print sheet this site produces is the wrong answer, and we would rather say so than sell you a page of paper you cannot use.

When printing is beside the point

The other direction is growing faster. Where an application takes a digital file, printing costs nothing because nothing is printed.

The United Kingdom's online service accepts an uploaded photo or a code from a booth, and the UK requirements set out both. Canada's online renewal wants a digital photo and specifically excludes a scan of a print. Germany went furthest: since 1 May 2025 paper photos are no longer accepted for the passport or the identity card at all, so the only routes are capture at the authority or a registered photographer transmitting the image electronically. The German rules cover what that means in practice.

Even the British driving licence sidesteps the print. Renewing a photocard online costs GBP 14 as of September 2026 and lets you reuse the photo already held for your passport, which the licence and ID card guide explains.

What a rejection actually costs

Set the photo price against the application. A standard adult British passport is GBP 102 applied for online and GBP 115.50 on paper, and a child passport GBP 66.50 or GBP 80, as of September 2026. Against those figures the difference between a GBP 12.99 shop photo and a free one at home is not the number that matters.

The number that matters is time. A rejected photo does not usually fail an application, it delays it while the office asks for a replacement, and that delay is measured against your travel date rather than against the day you noticed. This is why the free retake offers are worth more than they look, and why understanding the published refusal reasons before you print is the cheapest step in the whole process.