Leather wallet dimensions for cards and cash

Size a wallet from what goes in it. A bank card is 85.60 × 53.98 mm, so a card slot needs roughly 89 to 92 mm between its stitch lines: the card's width, plus room for the leather to curve round the cards. Bank notes vary much more, from 62 to 82 mm tall and up to 160 mm long, so check the notes you'll carry before you fix the size of the cash pocket.

Below are the card and banknote sizes to design around, a simple way to work out card slot widths, and what makes a pocket too tight.

Start from the card

Bank cards follow the ID-1 size in the ISO/IEC 7810 standard:

• 85.60 × 53.98 mm (3.370 × 2.125 in)
• Corners rounded to a radius of about 3.18 mm
• 0.76 mm thick, more where the numbers are embossed

Credit and debit cards, many driving licences and ID cards, and many loyalty and transport cards are this size. Business cards are not, and some are wider:

Card	Size
Bank card (ID-1)	85.60 × 53.98 mm
US business card	88.9 × 50.8 mm (3.5 × 2 in)
European business card	85 × 55 mm
Japanese business card	91 × 55 mm

A slot sized closely for bank cards won't take a US or Japanese business card, which are 3 to 5 mm wider. If business cards matter, size the slot for those.

How wide to make a card slot

What matters is the width between the stitch lines on either side of the slot. The pocket's layers have to curve round the edges of the cards before they meet at the stitch line, and that uses up width on both sides. A simple starting point:

Width between stitch lines = 85.6 mm + 2 × the thickness of the cards in the slot + 1.5 mm of ease

Cards in the slot	Stack thickness	Width between stitch lines
1	0.76 mm	88.6 mm
2	1.52 mm	90.1 mm
3	2.28 mm	91.6 mm
4	3.04 mm	93.2 mm

Treat these as a first try. Stiff or thick leather needs more room; soft, thin leather needs less. Make a mock-up from paper or scrap leather, put real cards in it, and adjust before you cut good leather.

Then add the stitch margin on both sides to get the width of the piece. A card holder 96 mm wide with its stitch line 3.5 mm in has 96 − 7 = 89 mm between the stitch lines: about right for one or two cards per slot.

Card slot height and the drop

A card is 53.98 mm tall. Two things decide the height of a slot:

• Depth. The pocket must cover enough of the card to hold it when the wallet is turned upside down and shaken. Check it on the mock-up.
• What shows. In stacked slots, each pocket and the card in it sit a step lower than the one behind, so the top of every card shows. That step, the drop, is often around 12 mm (about 1/2 in): enough to grip a card between finger and thumb.

Every extra slot adds one drop to the height. Three stacked slots with a 12 mm drop span 54 + 2 × 12 = 78 mm from the bottom of the lowest card to the top of the highest, before you add any stitch margins.

Cash pockets: banknote sizes

Bank notes differ by country and often by value. These are the current series:

Currency	Note sizes
US dollar	Every note 156 × 66.3 mm
Canadian dollar	Every note 152.4 × 69.85 mm
Euro	€5 120 × 62 mm, up to €200 153 × 77 mm
UK pound	£5 125 × 65 mm, up to £50 146 × 77 mm
Japanese yen	¥1000 150 × 76 mm, up to ¥10000 160 × 76 mm
Australian dollar	$5 130 × 65 mm, up to $100 158 × 65 mm
Swiss franc	10 francs 123 × 70 mm, up to 1000 francs 158 × 70 mm

The euro's €50, €100 and €200 notes are all 77 mm tall. The older €500 note, no longer issued, is 160 × 82 mm.

What the sizes mean for a wallet

• Height is the size to watch. A cash pocket sized for US dollars, at 66.3 mm, won't take a €50 or a £50 at 77 mm. To carry several currencies, make the inside of the pocket taller than the tallest note you expect, plus a few millimetres.
• Long wallets carry notes flat. The pocket's inside must be longer than the longest note: 160 mm takes every note in the table above, and you still need ease on top.
• Bifolds fold the notes. A note folds in half across its length, so a 156 mm dollar becomes 78 × 66.3 mm. The cash section of a bifold opens out to more than the note's full length, and the closed wallet must be taller than the note.

Leather thickness and bulk

Pockets are usually lighter leather than the outside, because every layer adds bulk where they're stitched together. Thickness is sold in millimetres or ounces: 1 oz is 1/64 in, about 0.4 mm. So 2 to 3 oz is about 0.8 to 1.2 mm, and 3 to 4 oz is about 1.2 to 1.6 mm.

Add up the layers at the thickest stitched edge. An outside of 1.4 mm with three pocket layers of 1 mm each puts 4.4 mm of leather under one stitch line, before any cards go in. The more layers a slot has, the more width it needs.

Common mistakes

• Measuring the cut edge instead of the stitch line. The stitch line is what holds the card in.
• Forgetting the stack. A slot that fits one card snugly is too tight for three.
• Designing for one currency. A wallet made for dollars may not close over euros or yen.
• Printing the pattern at the wrong size. At 95% a 90 mm slot prints 85.5 mm wide, narrower than the card. See how to print a leather pattern at actual size.

How PatinaCAD does it

PatinaCAD has the card, banknote and coin sizes for wallet patterns built in. Its template library holds a bank card (ID-1) with its rounded corners, ID-2 and passport sizes, US, European and Japanese business cards, bank notes of 16 currencies and coins. Each name gives its size in millimetres.

1. Click a card or a note to stamp it on your drawing. Stamped templates are drawn in red so they stand apart from your cut lines, and you can snap to their corners.
2. Draw the pocket round it with the ease you need, and offset the stitch line.
3. Right-click the template and choose Hide when printing, so it stays off the paper.
4. Prick the stitching holes with your iron and print the pattern at actual size.

The user guide's template chapter explains how to save your own shapes. Before cutting, print the printer scale test page once to check your printer, and read how to space stitching holes evenly for the slot's stitching.

Quick answers

How big is a credit card in inches? 3.370 × 2.125 in, or about 3 3/8 × 2 1/8 in.

How many cards should one slot hold? As many as you'll really put in it. Size each slot for that number: the table above shows how much wider each extra card makes it.

Will euros fit a wallet made for dollars? The smaller ones may. The €50, €100 and €200 are 77 mm tall, more than 10 mm taller than a dollar, so they need a taller pocket.

What size is a passport? Passports use the ID-3 size, 125 × 88 mm, too big for most wallets. A passport cover needs its own pattern.