Business Card Size: Dimensions, Bleed and How to Make Yours

The standard business card size is 3.5 × 2 inches (89 × 51 mm) in the United States and Canada, and 85 × 55 mm (3.35 × 2.17 in) almost everywhere else, including the UK, Europe and India. Add 3 mm (0.125 in) of bleed on every side before you export, and keep all text at least 3 mm inside the trim line. At 300 DPI that means an 85 × 55 mm card with bleed is 1075 × 720 pixels.

Updated October 2026.

The sizes that actually matter

Business cards are one of the few printed items where two regional standards coexist and neither is wrong. Choose based on where you will hand the card out and where you are printing it, not on preference. A card that is 3 mm wider than the local standard still fits a wallet, but it will not fit the standard sleeves, holders and display wallets sold in that market.

Standard	Millimetres	Inches	Pixels at 300 DPI	Used in
US / Canada	89 × 51 mm	3.5 × 2 in	1050 × 600	United States, Canada
International	85 × 55 mm	3.35 × 2.17 in	1004 × 650	UK, Europe, India, Australia
Japan	91 × 55 mm	3.58 × 2.17 in	1075 × 650	Japan
Slim	85 × 49 mm	3.35 × 1.93 in	1004 × 579	Optional trim in most markets
Square	55 × 55 mm	2.17 × 2.17 in	650 × 650	Design-led and creative studios
Credit-card format	85.6 × 54 mm	3.37 × 2.13 in	1011 × 638	Loyalty and membership cards

The credit-card format is worth knowing about because it is the ISO ID-1 shape used by every bank card. It is close to the international business card size but not the same, which is why a card designed for card wallets should be built at 85.6 × 54 mm rather than 85 × 55 mm.

Bleed, trim and safe margin

Three measurements decide whether a card comes back from the printer looking right, and they are easy to confuse.

Trim size is the finished card — 3.5 × 2 in or 85 × 55 mm. This is what you quote when you order.
Bleed is extra artwork that extends past the trim so colour reaches the edge after cutting. The standard is 3 mm (0.125 in) on all four sides. A card with a white or plain background can be supplied without bleed; anything with a coloured edge or photo needs it.
Safe margin is the distance from the trim edge in which you place nothing important. Keep it at least 3 mm, and 4 mm for text you cannot afford to lose.

Base size	With 3 mm / 0.125 in bleed	Pixels at 300 DPI
85 × 55 mm	91 × 61 mm	1075 × 720
3.5 × 2 in	3.75 × 2.25 in	1125 × 675
91 × 55 mm	97 × 61 mm	1146 × 720
89 × 51 mm	95 × 57 mm	1122 × 673

Some printers ask for 2 mm of bleed and some ask for 5 mm. Ask yours before you export rather than after, because re-exporting with a different bleed means regenerating the design.

How to make yours with AI on VdoBloom

The business card designer generates the design from your details and a style choice — no template, no dragging text boxes. It is a plain three-step flow.

Enter your details. Full name, job title and company name are required; email, phone and website are optional but will appear on the card if you fill them in.
Choose a style, colour and layout. Styles are modern, classic, minimalist and creative. Colours are blue, red, green, purple and black. Layouts are standard, centered and split.
Pick a model and the number of variations. You can generate one to four cards in a single run and compare them side by side in the preview panel.
Generate, then choose. Download the variation you like best and take it to your print shop or upload it to an online printer.

Two things to know before you start. First, there is no size field in the tool: it produces a design, and your print shop sets the final paper size. That is why the bleed table above matters — the design gives you the layout, and the printer handles the 3 mm. Second, every model in the picker is a text-to-image model, so the letters on the card are rendered as artwork. Short strings of plain text come out reliably; unusual spellings and long email addresses are where errors creep in.

What it costs

Each card is one image from the model you pick, so the cost is the model's per-image price multiplied by the number of variations. The default model is priced at 20 credits per card; Nano Banana is 6 credits, Flux Kontext Pro is 7 and Seedream 4.5 is 7. Two variations on Nano Banana therefore costs 12 credits, and the same job on the default model costs 40. Whichever you choose, the exact total is shown on the generate button before you run it, and paid plans return watermark-free images you can print commercially.

If you are weighing how many rounds of variations you want, the plans page shows what each monthly credit allowance covers, and every new account starts with 10 free credits and no card.

Prompt and layout ideas

Modern and minimal. Name and title on the left, a single accent bar in the brand colour, company name small at the bottom. Style: minimalist, colour: blue.
Classic professional. Centered layout, name in a serif face, three contact lines stacked under a thin rule. Style: classic, colour: black.
Creative split. Colour block on one third of the card with the company name inside it, contact details on the white remainder. Style: creative, layout: split.
Warm and personal. Purple or green palette, a rounded sans-serif, job title written as a plain-language description of what you do.

Common mistakes

Leaving out the bleed and printing a coloured edge. Without it you get a thin white sliver down one side.
Putting text at the very edge. A trim tolerance of half a millimetre is normal, so anything within 3 mm of the trim is at risk.
Too many contact details. Six lines at 85 × 55 mm is already crowded. Name, role, company, one email, one phone and one web address is the practical ceiling.
Using a US size outside North America. Check where the card will be printed and where it will be used; if they differ, go with the print shop's local standard.
Setting type below 6 pt. Fine for a lawyer's disclaimer, unreadable for a phone number.

Proofread every string before you generate — the text is baked into the image, so a typo means a fresh run. Our guides on why AI gets text wrong and the models that render text best cover this in more depth.

Frequently asked questions

What is the standard business card size in mm?

85 × 55 mm is the international standard and is used across the UK, Europe, India and Australia. Japan uses 91 × 55 mm. The US and Canada use 3.5 × 2 in, which converts to 89 × 51 mm and is a slightly different shape.

What size should a business card file be in pixels?

At 300 DPI, an 85 × 55 mm card is 1004 × 650 pixels and a 3.5 × 2 in card is 1050 × 600 pixels. Add the bleed before exporting: with 3 mm on each side the files become 1075 × 720 and 1125 × 675 pixels.

How much bleed does a business card need?

The industry default is 3 mm, or 0.125 in, on all four sides. Some printers specify 2 mm and a few ask for 5 mm, so confirm the number with the shop doing the printing. If your design has a photo or colour that runs to the edge, bleed is required; on a plain white card it is optional.

Can I design a business card without a template?

Yes. The AI business card designer builds the full layout from your details, a style and a colour choice, so no template is needed. You can also read more about how the business card maker works before you start.

Which AI model should I use for a card?

Any of the text-to-image models in the picker will work, and they differ mainly in price and how well they handle lettering. Nano Banana is the cheap option at 6 credits per image. Generate two or three variations on a low-cost model first, confirm the text is spelled correctly, and only then run the final version on a more expensive model.

Ready to make yours? Open the AI business card designer, enter your details, choose a style and generate up to four variations — the credit cost appears before you run anything.