Business Card Size Guide

The standard size in India

The dominant business card size in India is 89 × 51 mm (3.5 × 2 inches). This is effectively identical to the US standard of 88.9 × 50.8 mm, and it is what every Indian wallet, cardholder and Rolodex is built around. Unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise, use it.

International sizes

• India / US: 89 × 51 mm — the default
• Europe: 85 × 55 mm — slightly shorter and taller; common when dealing with European clients
• ISO 7810 ID-1: 85.6 × 53.98 mm — the credit-card size, occasionally used for a deliberately card-like feel
• Japan: 91 × 55 mm — noticeably larger; worth matching if you exchange cards in Japan, where the ritual matters
• Australia / UK: 90 × 55 mm

Non-standard sizes and their trade-offs

A square 55 × 55 mm card is genuinely distinctive and popular with design studios, photographers and creative agencies. The trade-off is real: it will not fit some cardholders and wallet slots, and it costs slightly more because it nests less efficiently on the press sheet. A slim card at 85 × 40 mm looks modern but reduces usable space by around 25%, which usually forces the type size down to the point of being difficult to read. Rounded corners at a 3 mm radius are a lower-risk way of standing out — the card still fits everything.

Setting up bleed and safe area

Three measurements decide whether a card trims cleanly:

• Trim size — the finished card, e.g. 89 × 51 mm
• Bleed — extend any background colour or image 3 mm beyond every edge, giving a document of 95 × 57 mm. Cutting has a small tolerance, and without bleed you risk a white sliver along one edge
• Safe area — keep all text and logos at least 4 mm inside the trim line so nothing is clipped

If your card has a white background, bleed is less critical because a small trim variance is invisible. If it has any coloured background at all, bleed is mandatory.

Resolution and colour

Supply artwork at 300 DPI at final size and in CMYK colour mode. A logo pulled from a website is typically 72 DPI and will look soft when printed. RGB files convert automatically at the press, but saturated blues, greens and oranges shift noticeably in that conversion — if colour accuracy matters, convert to CMYK yourself and check the result on screen before sending.

A quick pre-flight checklist

• Trim size correct and consistent across both sides
• 3 mm bleed on all four edges
• Text and logos 4 mm inside the trim
• 300 DPI at final size
• CMYK colour mode
• Fonts embedded or converted to outlines
• Black text set as 100% K rather than a four-colour mix, which prints sharper
• Supplied as a print-ready PDF

We check every one of these free of charge before printing and send a digital proof, so a mistake here is not fatal — but getting it right first time saves a round of revisions.

Related reading: business card printing guide, premium business cards and artwork preparation checklist.