Standard Business Card Sizes Around the World
by Harry Williams - Published on October 23, 2017 - Updated on September 21, 2021
Standard business card printing dimensions vary from country to country. The standard business card size is 3.5” x 2” in the United States and Canada. If you’re a designer from outside the US and want to create standard American business cards, the close approximate would be 51 mm x 89 mm or a 1.75 ratio.
Here are the dimensions of American, Japanese, and UK standard business cards and credit cards for comparison:
To be clear, 3.5” x 2” is the standard finished size. There may be a bleed area that can extend further out before the cards are trimmed to their final size. This allows for a safe space when trimming down a business card design. This bleed can be any width, but â??” is typical for the North American context.
Standard business card sizes are not regulated by any official body. Existing size standards throughout the world exist due to tradition and convenience. Business card holders and filing devices in different countries may also be more compatible with the existing standards. Other cards such as credit cards and banking cards may influence the standard business card size in a certain countries. For instance, banking cards (85.60 × 53.98 mm) and business cards in Western Europe (85 × 55 mm) allowing them to be easily used in the same storage cases if needed. The dominant standard in a neighboring country can also cause a certain standard business card size to be adopted, such as the case of Canada adopting the standard American business card size. Taken together these factors can reinforce the uniformity of business card dimensions within countries.
Here's a table of standard business card sizes in different countries for comparison.
| Country/Standard | Dimensions (inches) | Dimensions (millimeters) | Aspect ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada, United States | 3.5” × 2 | 89mm × 51mm | 1.75 |
| Japan | 3.582” × 2.165” | 91mm × 55mm | 1.655 | Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Slovenia, Portugal, Turkey |
3.346” × 2.165” | 85mm × 55mm | 1.545 | Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Taiwan, Sweden, Vietnam, India, Colombia |
3.54” × 2.165” | 90mm × 55mm | 1.636 | Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Malaysia | 3.543” × 2.125” | 90mm × 54mm | 1.667 | Iran | 3.346” × 1.889” | 85mm × 48mm | 1.771 | Sri Lanka, Argentina, India, Brazil, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovakia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Latvia, Mexico, South Korea and South Africa |
3.543” × 1.968” | 90mm × 50mm | 1.8 | ISO/IEC 7810 ID-1, (credit card size) | 3.370” × 2.125” | 85.60mm × 53.98mm | 1.586 | ISO 216, A8 sized | 2.913” × 2.047” | 74mm × 52mm | 1.423 | ISO 216, C8 sized | 3.189” × 2.244” | 81mm × 57mm | 1.421 | ISO 216, B8 sized | 3.465” × 2.441” | 88mm × 62mm | 1.419 |
Download and share our infographic on Business Card Sizes Around the World.
As you can see from the table, the standard business card sizes from all over the world are not that radically different. The difference between the widest and narrowest standard is just around half an inch. If you give someone a traditionally-shaped business card with a different country’s standard dimensions, they won’t necessarily know the difference until you tell them or if they try to store your card somewhere intended for a local standard. In most cases, your business card would likely still fit, especially in the case of US standard size cards, which are slightly narrower compared to others.
Did we answer you questions on standard business card sizes? Tell us your thoughts.
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