A4 vs US Letter: which size should your resume be?

Use US Letter (8.5 × 11 inches) for jobs in the United States and Canada, and A4 (210 × 297 mm) almost everywhere else. Go by the country the job is in, even if you live somewhere else. A Canadian applying to a firm in London should send A4, and a Kenyan applying to a company in Toronto should send Letter.

Getting it wrong rarely costs much on screen, because a PDF viewer shows either size at full width. The size starts to matter when someone prints your resume, and when you're trying to keep it to one page. The same content breaks across pages in a different place on each size, as the example below shows.

Which countries use A4 and which use US Letter?

Almost every country uses A4. According to Wikipedia's overview of paper sizes, the ISO 216 standard that defines A4 has been adopted by every country except the United States and Canada. A few countries adopted it officially but still use Letter day to day.

For the countries where both sizes are in use, match what the employer uses. If they've sent you a PDF, such as the job description or an application form, its document properties show the page size. When you can't tell, either size is fine.

How different are A4 and US Letter?

They're close enough that people mix them up. Letter is 5.9 mm wider, and A4 is 17.6 mm taller.

A4 gives you about 3% more paper, and all of the extra is at the bottom. The height difference alone is enough for three or four lines of body text at a typical resume font size.

What happens to the same resume at each size?

We took OneCV's sample resume in the Classic Clear template and rendered it at A4 and at US Letter, changing nothing else.

Two things moved. Letter's extra width let four contact details fit on the line under the name, where A4 fits three. Letter's shorter page ran out of room after the Courses section, so Projects moved to page 2, while A4 kept Projects on page 1.

So a resume that exactly fills one A4 page will usually spill onto a second page at Letter. Going from Letter to A4, the narrower page can wrap a long line onto two, but the extra height usually leaves room for it. Whichever way you switch, check every page break before you send the file.

What happens if you send the wrong size?

On screen, the size makes almost no difference. PDF viewers, email previews and browsers show the page at whatever size the file is. A recruiter may notice that an A4 page looks a little long, or not notice at all.

Printing is where it shows, and what the reader gets depends on their print settings.

Printers that can't print to the edge of the paper shrink the page a little more. A slightly small printout is a minor thing, and it takes a minute to avoid.

What if you're applying in more than one country?

Keep one copy of your resume at each size, and name them so you can tell them apart, such as "Resume (Letter)" and "CV (A4)". Many A4 countries, including the UK and Ireland, call the document a CV. Change the size first, fix any page break it moves, and make your final edits after that. When you change one copy later, make the same change in the other. Our guide to tailoring your resume to a job description covers keeping several versions in step.

For a remote job, use the size of the country the hiring team works from. A remote role at a US company gets Letter, even if you apply from Berlin or Lagos.

How to switch between A4 and US Letter in OneCV

In OneCV's resume builder, the page size is one setting. New resumes start at A4, so switch to Letter before you apply in the US or Canada.

1. Open your resume and go to the Customize tab.
2. Under Document Settings, set Page Format to A4 or Letter (US & Canada).
3. Look through the preview for any section that moved to a new page. If one spilled over, lower the Top & Bottom Margin or the Space Between Elements in the Spacing settings.
4. Download the PDF. It comes out at exactly the size you chose, with no watermark on any plan.

The Language setting in the same card changes the size too. English (US) switches the resume to Letter with US-style dates (MM/DD/YYYY), and English (UK) switches it to A4 with DD/MM/YYYY. Every other language starts at A4, and you can change the page format afterwards. Cover letters have the same Page Format setting in their own Customize tab, so the letter can match the resume. The rest of the design settings stay the same when you switch.

The Free plan includes one resume, so on Free you'd switch the size before each download. Keeping an A4 copy and a Letter copy side by side needs Pro, at $10 a month or $48 a year. If you mostly apply outside North America, the CV maker page covers the A4 side in more detail.

Frequently asked questions

What size paper is a resume in the UK?

A4. UK employers expect A4, and most call the document a CV. The same goes for Ireland and the rest of Europe.

What size should a resume be in Canada?

US Letter, 8.5 × 11 inches. Canada uses the same paper sizes as the United States.

What size is a CV in Australia or India?

A4 in both. Australia, New Zealand, India and the rest of South Asia all use A4.

Is 8.5 × 11 the same as A4?

No. 8.5 × 11 inches is US Letter. A4 is 8.27 × 11.69 inches, so it's a little narrower and about two thirds of an inch taller.

Does page size matter to applicant tracking systems?

Page size doesn't change the words in your PDF, and an applicant tracking system works from the text. What changes is where lines and pages break, which matters to the person who reads the resume next.

Can you print an A4 resume on US Letter paper?

Yes. Choose "Fit to page" or "Shrink oversized pages" in the print dialog, and it prints at about 94% of its size. At actual size, part of the page may be cut off.

Should you send your resume in both sizes?

Send one, in the size the employer's country uses. Two copies of the same resume in one application only give the reader an extra file to open.

Set the size for the country you're applying to, check the page breaks and download. Create your free account to try it with your own resume.