QSL card size and design

The classic QSL card is 3.5 × 5.5 inches (90 × 140 mm) — the maximum size the international bureau system is built around. Cards mailed directly or by a printing service are often standard postcard sizes instead: MailQSL cards, for example, are 4 × 6 inch (102 × 152 mm) postcards, which USPS mails at the postcard rate. If you plan to send cards through a bureau, stay at 3.5 × 5.5; if your cards travel as regular postcards, 4 × 6 gives you more room.

The fields a card must carry

Award programs check cards against logs, so the QSO data has to be complete and legible: both callsigns, date and time in UTC, frequency or band, mode, and signal report, plus your own location (grid square, city/state, or DXCC entity). Leave a “PSE QSL / TNX QSL” line if you want to signal whether you’re requesting a card or thanking for one.

Design rules that keep a card usable

• Callsign first.Your callsign should be readable at arm’s length — it’s the one element every QSL wall is scanned by.
• Dark text on light background for the QSO data block. Artwork can be bold; the data has to stay legible.
• UTC, unambiguous dates. Write dates in an unambiguous form (e.g. 02 Aug 2026). A date like 02/08/26 reads differently on each side of the Atlantic.
• Respect the bleed.Printed cards are trimmed after printing, so backgrounds should extend past the final card edge and text should stay well inside it. MailQSL’s editor shows the trim line and bleed zone while you design, so nothing important gets cut off.
• Leave the back for addressing.On a postcard-style QSL, one side carries the address and postage. MailQSL fills the card back with the recipient’s address and your QSO details automatically.

Photos and artwork

The front of the card is yours: station photos, antennas, your QTH skyline, contest logos, or plain typography all work. Use the highest resolution image you have — a 4 × 6 card printed at 300 DPI needs roughly 1800 × 1200 pixels to look sharp. Low-resolution images that look fine on screen print visibly soft.

If you’d rather not fight a layout program, MailQSL’s gallery of ready-made designs handles sizing, bleed, and the address side for you — see how it works.