This document provides instructions for cutting SIM cards to smaller sizes at your own risk. It explains how to print a template, tape your SIM card to it, draw cut lines, cut along the lines with scissors, and smooth the edges with sandpaper. Cutting contacts may not affect functionality as the chip is much smaller, but cutting a SIM card could destroy it.

1. How To Cut SIM Cards
Follow these instructions at your
own risk. Cutting your SIM card
may destroy it!
MiniSIM (2FF) to MicroSIM (3FF) 1. Print this page at 100% scale on a
DIN A4 page.
2. Fix your SIM card with double-
sided tape to this template.
3. Use a ruler and a marker to draw
the cut lines onto your SIM card.
MiniSIM (2FF) to NanoSIM (4FF)
4. Cut your SIM card along the drawn
lines using scissors. Cutting
contacts usually does not impact
functionality as the actual chip below
is much smaller.
actual chip
MicroSIM (3FF) to NanoSIM (4FF)
photo: © SecretDisc (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
unused contacts C4 & C8
(not present on many SIMs)
5. Round the edges by grinding them
with sandpaper or a file.
Including tolerance defined by ETSI specifications (+30µm/
-70µm) NanoSIMs (0.67mm) are just 60µm thinner than
previous SIMs (0.76mm), which corresponds to the
thickness of a human hair and thus does not make a
difference in practice, notably not on the iPhone 5.
2 cm
1inch
release 1.11 (21 September 2012)
released by Christian von der Ropp under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/