We characterize the 157 nm photodissociation of dichloromethane (CH2Cl2) using photofragment translational spectroscopy, detecting the products with photoionization mass spectrometry. The major photodissociation products are Cl + CH2Cl and HCl + CHCl. Comparing the integrated ion signal at m/e = 35 (Cl+) and m/e = 49 (CH2Cl+) gives the partial photoionization cross section of CH2Cl to parent ion to be sigma = 26.6 Mb at 13.7 eV. This value is a quantitative anchor point of the energy-dependent photoionization cross section. In recent work we used this result to quantify the product branching to HCO + CH2Cl in the photodissociation of 2-chloroacetaldehyde. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.