Free Austrian e-card Photo Online — 35 × 45 mm, Only If You Have to Bring One

Check first whether you need an e-card photo at all: for most insured people, the social insurance takes the photo automatically from official registers. If you do need one, you hand in a printed 35 × 45 mm colour passport photo for the e-card in person at a registration office (Registrierungsstelle); there is no online upload. IDPhotoBy prepares that photo for printing.

The social insurance takes your photo automatically from an Austrian passport or identity card (valid or expired for at most six years), ID Austria, an Austrian driving licence in card format, a document from the aliens’ register such as a residence permit or Red-White-Red Card, or an e-card photo registered in the last seven years. Your new e-card with the photo then arrives in good time before the old one expires.

You have to bring a photo only if you are 14 or older, none of these sources has one and no exception applies. The exceptions cover people who turn 70 or are older in the year the card is issued (until 31 December 2031), people receiving care allowance of level 4 or higher, and people for whom bringing a photo is proven impossible for serious health reasons, which always includes in-patient institutional care. They may still bring a photo voluntarily. The official Foto-Sofort-Check shows whether a photo is currently available for you.

You can use any e-card photo registration office, regardless of your health insurer or main residence, but the offices differ by citizenship:

• Austrian citizens: the customer-service offices of the social insurance institutions, such as ÖGK, PVA, SVS and BVAEB, and authorised municipalities.
• Non-Austrian citizens: the regional police directorates, the other offices listed on chipkarte.at (in Vienna, for example, police stations and the regional directorate of the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum, BFA) and authorised municipalities, with an appointment booked through the Interior Ministry’s online appointment system.

Many registration offices require an appointment. Bring the printed photo (not older than six months, meeting the passport-photo criteria) and your e-card or social insurance number. Austrian citizens also show their proof of citizenship and an official photo ID, both in the original; without a photo ID, they bring an adult identity witness. Non-Austrian citizens show a valid travel document in the original.

Bring the photo 3 to 4 months before your current e-card expires. If the card has no expiry date (it shows *****), bring one when you are asked for it at a doctor’s visit or by the social insurance. That first request starts a 150-day transition period, after which the old card is blocked. The cost of the photo is borne by the cardholder.

The official e-card FAQ rules out uploading a photo, because the office has to make sure the photo and the person match. According to the insurer BVAEB, a professional photographer can store your photo in the eBild system and give you a code for the registration office; private persons can’t do this, and you still have to appear in person. If you apply for an Austrian passport, identity card or driving licence, or register for ID Austria, the photo from that procedure is taken over automatically.

The e-card photo must meet the passport-photo criteria (Passbildkriterien): by law (ASVG section 31a), the photo requirements of the Passport Act Implementing Regulation (PassG-DV) apply. The e-card photo size is 35 × 45 mm.

• Head: from chin to crown, it should cover roughly two thirds of the photo, must not exceed 36 mm and should be centred; high hairstyles may reach past the edge; eye centres at least 8 mm apart (10 mm is optimal).
• Face: only you, facing the camera squarely, without tilting or turning your head; neutral expression, mouth closed; eyes open, looking straight into the camera, not covered by hair; even lighting, sharp in all areas, natural skin tones, no red eyes.
• Glasses and head coverings: glasses are fine if your eyes stay clearly recognisable, with no reflections, tinted lenses or sunglasses and no frame across the eyes; head coverings only for religious or medical reasons, with the face visible from chin to forehead.
• Background: a single light colour, ideally grey, without pattern or shadows and contrasting enough with your face and hair.
• Photo and print: in colour, not older than six months, on smooth, glossy paper with no surface texture and no damage, stains or creases; the head must not appear distorted or otherwise altered (no mirror images, no changed proportions).

The card itself shows the photo laser-engraved in black and white. Our Austrian passport photo page explains the same criteria in more detail.

1. In even light, take a sharp photo facing the camera in front of a plain, light wall, with your mouth closed.
2. Upload the photo; the document type is already set to the Austrian e-card.
3. IDPhotoBy crops the photo to 35 × 45 mm so that your head is no taller than the official 36 mm, and checks the background against the criteria.
4. After the watermarked preview, download the finished photo with its print-ready sheet.
5. Have the sheet printed at its original size on smooth, glossy photo paper.

IDPhotoBy doesn’t retouch your face or hand anything in for you; the registration office decides whether to accept the photo.

The Dachverband der Sozialversicherungsträger, the umbrella body of Austria’s social insurance institutions, publishes the e-card photo rules on chipkarte.at. Check the official portal before you go to a registration office.