Abstract: The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for acquiring an image for iris recognition using a distance of a facial feature, the apparatus comprising: a buffer for photographing one or more facial images of a subject being photographed so as to acquire an image for iris recognition and storing the photographed facial images; a facial feature distance calculating unit for calculating a distance of a facial feature from the facial images stored in the buffer; an actual distance estimating unit for estimating an actual distance between the subject being photographed and a camera from the distance of the face feature calculated by the facial feature distance calculating unit, and confirming, from of the estimated distance, that the subject being photographed exists in an iris photographing space; and an iris image acquiring unit for acquiring an eye image from the facial images of the subject being photographed that has been confirmed as existing in the iris photographing space by the actual distanc