Guide · Updated 4 September 2026 · 4 min read
What size is a UK business card?
A standard UK business card is 85 × 55 mm, the same as most of Europe. Print artwork is set up 3 mm larger on every side, 91 × 61 mm, so the cut never leaves a white edge, and text stays at least 4 mm inside the trim so the guillotine cannot touch it.
The three rectangles
Every business card artwork is three rectangles, one inside the other, and each has a job.
- Trim, 85 × 55 mm. The card you hold. This is the line the guillotine aims for.
- Bleed box, 91 × 61 mm. The artwork file. Anything that touches the edge of the card, a background colour or a panel, must run 3 mm past the trim on every side. A stack of cards is cut a fraction of a millimetre off the line, and a background that stops exactly at the trim shows a hairline of white paper on one side.
- Safe zone, 77 × 47 mm. Where the type lives, 4 mm inside the trim. The same cutting tolerance that makes bleed necessary makes this necessary: a phone number set hard against the edge loses its last digit on a bad day.
How that compares elsewhere
Sizes differ by country, and a file set up for one prints wrong on another. These are the common ones; check with the printer if the card is for another market.
| Region | Trim size | In inches |
|---|---|---|
| UK, Ireland, most of Europe | 85 × 55 mm | 3.35 × 2.17 in |
| United States and Canada | 88.9 × 50.8 mm | 3.5 × 2 in |
| Australia and New Zealand | 90 × 55 mm | 3.54 × 2.17 in |
| Japan | 91 × 55 mm | 3.58 × 2.17 in |
The UK card is slightly narrower than the American one and slightly taller. A US design dropped onto a UK sheet loses nearly 4 mm of width, which is usually the end of a line of small type.
What a printer expects in the file
- A PDF at the bleed size, 91 × 61 mm, one page per side.
- Crop marks outside the bleed, showing where the trim line is. They are drawn in the margin, never on the card.
- Type as vector text or outlines, not a picture of text.
- Colours in CMYK, or an RGB file the printer converts. Large flat areas print better than gradients, which band on press.
How Cardsetting sets this up
Every card the studio draws is set on the 91 × 61 mm bleed box and exported as a PDF with crop marks and vector type. Before a card is shown, the engine measures the render: any text closer than 4 mm to the trim fails the check, and so does a panel that straddles the trim line without reaching the bleed edge, because that one comes back sliced.
Questions people also ask
- What size is a business card in pixels?
- At 300 dots per inch, the usual print resolution, the 91 × 61 mm bleed box is 1075 × 720 pixels and the 85 × 55 mm trim is 1004 × 650 pixels. Set the file up in millimetres if the software allows it; pixels only matter for raster artwork placed on the card.
- Is a UK business card the same size as a credit card?
- Very nearly. A credit card is 85.6 × 53.98 mm, so a 85 × 55 mm business card is a millimetre taller and a hair narrower. Both fit the same wallet slot, which is why the size has stuck.
- How much bleed does a business card need?
- 3 mm on every edge is the UK and European standard, giving a 91 × 61 mm file for a 85 × 55 mm card. US printers usually ask for 0.125 in, which is 3.2 mm, so the same allowance in practice.