A Yu-Gi-Oh! card is 59 mm wide and 86 mm tall. That’s 5.9 × 8.6 cm, about 2.32 × 3.39 inches, 697 × 1016 pixels at 300 dpi and 1394 × 2031 pixels at 600 dpi. It’s smaller than a Pokémon or Magic card, which is why sleeves, binder pages and print templates made for those games don’t fit it properly.
The size in every unit
| Unit | Width × height |
|---|---|
| Millimetres | 59 × 86 |
| Centimetres | 5.9 × 8.6 |
| Inches (decimal) | 2.32 × 3.39 |
| Inches (fraction, rounded) | 2 5/16 × 3 3/8 |
| Pixels at 300 dpi | 697 × 1016 |
| Pixels at 600 dpi | 1394 × 2031 |
The pixel figures are the millimetres divided by 25.4 and multiplied by the dpi, rounded to whole pixels. A pixel count on its own says nothing about printed size, so if someone gives you “697 × 1016” without a dpi, ask.
Where does 59 × 86 come from? Konami’s rulebooks aren’t where I found it. The closest thing to an official statement is on Konami’s own sleeves: every Duelist Card Protector listing says the sleeves fit cards up to 59 mm × 86 mm. Yugipedia gives the standard card as 8.6 cm × 5.9 cm, and the sleeve maker KMC defines its Small-Size class as 59 × 86 mm. TCG and OCG cards are the same size.
You’ll see thickness, weight and corner radius quoted around the web, often “about 0.3 mm” and “about 1.8 g”. Konami doesn’t publish any of the three, and the pages quoting them don’t say who measured what, so I’ve left them out. If you need a corner radius for a cutting die, measure a card from your own collection.
Are they smaller than Pokémon cards?
Yes: 4 mm narrower and 2 mm shorter. Pokémon and Magic cards are 63 × 88 mm, the size sleeve makers call standard.
| Card | Size (mm) | Size (in) | Sleeve class |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG and OCG | 59 × 86 | 2.32 × 3.39 | Japanese / small |
| Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel | 59 × 86 | 2.32 × 3.39 | Japanese / small |
| Cardfight!! Vanguard | 59 × 86 | 2.32 × 3.39 | Japanese / small |
| Pokémon TCG | 63 × 88 | 2.48 × 3.46 | Standard |
| Magic: The Gathering | 63 × 88 | 2.48 × 3.46 | Standard |
| Poker playing card | 63.5 × 88.9 | 2.5 × 3.5 | Standard |
The Rush Duel row comes from Konami, which sells one protector for both games; the Vanguard, Pokémon and Magic rows come from Dragon Shield and Ultra PRO, who have to get this right to sell sleeves.
I think “Japanese size” is a bad name. Pokémon is a Japanese game and its cards are standard size, and Konami itself has printed standard-size Yu-Gi-Oh! items: the Field Center Cards handed out at Yu-Gi-Oh! Day events are 63 × 88 mm, according to Yugipedia. In Japan the same sleeve class is sold as “mini” or “small”. When you shop, read the millimetres and ignore the label.
Sleeve sizes that fit
A sleeve is always bigger than the card it holds, and makers don’t agree on which number to print on the pack. KMC, Ultra PRO and Ultimate Guard print the sleeve’s size. Dragon Shield and Konami print the size of the card that goes in. Both conventions describe the same sleeves.
| Layer | Product | Maker’s stated size |
|---|---|---|
| Inner | KMC Mini Perfect | 60 × 87 mm, 0.05 mm film |
| Inner | Dragon Shield Perfect Fit, Japanese size | For cards up to 59 × 86 mm |
| Regular | KMC Hyper Mat Mini | 62 × 89 mm |
| Regular | KMC Card Barrier Mini | 62 × 87 mm |
| Regular | Ultra PRO Small Deck Protector | 62 × 89 mm |
| Regular | Ultimate Guard Katana, Japanese size | 62 × 89 mm |
| Regular | Dragon Shield Matte, Japanese size | For cards up to 59 × 86 mm |
| Regular | Konami Duelist Card Protector | For cards up to 59 × 86 mm |
| Outer | KMC Mini CSG Mat & Clear | 65 × 92 mm |
If you only remember one number, make it 62 × 89. That’s the regular sleeve from three of the makers above, and Dragon Shield’s binder page listing describes its own Japanese sleeves as 62 × 89 too. I’d pick it over the 62 × 87 Card Barrier Mini, which leaves just 1 mm of sleeve above the card.
Konami’s official protectors are a little roomier than the rest. Konami doesn’t state their outer size, but Japanese shops list them at about 63 × 90 mm, which is why they need an outer sleeve around 65 × 92 mm if you want to protect the artwork on the back. Konami now sells its own answer to that: a “Large Clear” protector, released on 19 September 2026, made to cover its regular protectors.
Dragon Shield also makes outer sleeves in Japanese size, though it doesn’t publish their dimensions.
What the tournament rules say about sleeves
Konami’s TCG Tournament Policy (version 2.5, in effect since 5 September 2025) requires sleeves at Tier 2 events and above, and it bans “sleeves that are large enough to allow your cards to shift inside the sleeves”. So the advice you’ll find on some big gaming sites, that any standard sleeve will do, is fine for storage and wrong for a tournament deck. The same policy caps you at two sleeves per card, and one of the two has to be clear on both sides.
Binder pages and deck boxes
Width is what catches people out with binders. Dragon Shield’s Japanese size pocket pages spell out what goes in: bare Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, cards in 62 × 89 sleeves, and bare standard cards. Cards in Japanese size outer sleeves and cards in standard sleeves don’t fit. If you triple sleeve, buy standard-size pages.
Going the other way works but looks sloppy. A bare Yu-Gi-Oh! card in a page made for standard cards has room to slide and tilt.
Deck boxes are more forgiving. A box built for standard sleeves holds a Yu-Gi-Oh! deck with about 4 mm of sideways slack, because the sleeves are 62 mm wide instead of 66. For a sense of a box made for this size, Konami’s Duelist Card Case is 97 mm high, 72 mm wide and 50 mm deep, and Konami says it holds about 90 sleeved cards.
Pixel sizes for designing a custom card
You don’t have to work at exactly 697 × 1016. Any canvas with the 59:86 proportion prints correctly as long as you print it 59 mm wide, and more pixels give sharper small text. Our blank card templates come in two sizes with that proportion:
| Small template | Large template and maker download | |
|---|---|---|
| Canvas | 813 × 1185 px | 1626 × 2370 px |
| Resolution at 59 mm wide | 350 dpi | 700 dpi |
| Picture window | 614 × 614 px | 1228 × 1228 px |
| Window starts at (x, y) | 100, 219 | 200, 438 |
On a printed card that picture window works out to about 44.6 mm square. So the artwork you bring should be square, or croppable to square, and at least 1228 pixels a side if you’re using the large template. A phone photo is plenty. A 400-pixel image saved from a chat app will look soft.
The templates are frames for Normal, Effect, Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz and Link monsters, Spells, Traps and Tokens. There’s no Pendulum frame, and a Pendulum card’s picture area has a different shape, so these window numbers don’t apply to one.
Printing at the true size
- Get your cards onto a page at the right size. The quickest route is the print sheet on our custom cards page: it places up to nine saved cards on Letter or A4 at 300 dpi, each drawn at 697 × 1016 pixels, with cut marks.
- In the print dialog, choose the matching paper size and set the scale to 100% (some dialogs call it “Actual size”). Turn off “Fit to page”, “Shrink to fit” and “Scale to fit paper”.
- If your image viewer has no scale setting, set the printed width of the sheet to the full paper width instead: 215.9 mm for Letter, 210 mm for A4. For a single card image, set the width to 59 mm.
- Print one sheet and measure a card with a ruler before printing more. It should be 59 mm across and 86 mm tall.
- Cut on the card’s edge, or a hair inside it. A sliver of white paper shows more than a border that’s half a millimetre thin.
About bleed: for cards you cut at home, you don’t need any. The frame’s border runs to the edge, and trimming slightly into it is invisible. A print shop is different, because its blade drifts and it will ask for background that runs past the cut line. How far depends on the shop. TCGPrintery’s Japanese size template is 768 × 1087 pixels, which is 59 × 86 mm plus 3 mm on every side at 300 dpi; a factory template I checked wants only 1.5 mm (62 × 89 mm overall) and a 53 × 80 mm safe area for text. Use the template of whichever printer you’re paying.
Our downloads are cut size with no bleed. To add 3 mm yourself, open the 1626 × 2370 file in an image editor, enlarge the canvas to 1792 × 2536 with the card centred, and fill the new margin with the border colour. A print shop is also where you go for foil or holographic finishes, which a home printer and our tools can’t do.
What goes wrong
The sleeves are the wrong class
Standard sleeves (66 × 91 mm) on Yu-Gi-Oh! cards leave 7 mm of spare width, and the card slides from side to side. Small sleeves on standard cards simply don’t go on: Ultra PRO puts a warning on its small-sleeve page that they will not fit Magic or Pokémon cards. If a listing says “mini”, check the millimetres. At MakePlayingCards a “mini” card is 1.75 × 2.5 inches, far smaller than anything in this article.
The printer shrank the page
This is the common one. “Fit to page” scales the sheet down to clear the printer’s margins, and a card that should be 59 mm comes out at 57 or so, about 97%. It looks fine on its own and wrong the moment you sleeve it in front of a real card, because the real card shows all the way around it. The ruler check in step 4 catches it.
The cards were made poker size
General card printers are built around poker size, 2.5 × 3.5 inches (63.5 × 88.9 mm). A card cut to that is 4.5 mm too wide for a Yu-Gi-Oh! deck and won’t go into a 62 mm sleeve at all. Stretching a 59:86 design to fill a poker template also distorts it, since the proportions differ. Check that the shop offers 59 × 86 mm before you upload: MakePlayingCards’ template list, for one, doesn’t include it.
The card is the right size and still stands out
Paper is thinner and floppier than card stock, so a bare printout never feels right. The usual fix is to sleeve the printout in front of a real card you don’t need. Size still matters there: at 59 × 86 it sits square in the sleeve.
None of this makes a printed card playable at an event. The Tournament Policy bans proxies, which it defines as cards used to represent a different card, from Sanctioned and Official tournaments, Tier 1 included, even if you own the real card. Custom cards are for kitchen tables, gifts and testing a deck with friends who’ve agreed to it. Start from a blank frame if you want to do the lettering yourself, or use the card maker if you’d rather type the text and have it fitted for you.