Passport photo rules: digital uploads versus printed photos

The authority decides, and rules change

Everything in this guide comes from official pages checked on 27 October 2026. Authorities update their requirements, sometimes without much notice, so open the current page for your country before you take or prepare a photo. If anything here disagrees with that page, the official page wins.

Read the page for the exact route you're using. An online renewal, a paper application and a visa form from the same country can each ask for something different.

Printed photos: millimetres and head size

Printed photos are described in millimetres, with a range for the size of the head, measured from the chin to the top of the head (the crown).

• UK passport: 45 mm high by 35 mm wide, head between 29 mm and 34 mm, two identical photos on plain white photographic paper.
• Canada passport: 50 mm wide by 70 mm high, face from chin to crown between 31 mm and 36 mm, two identical photos.
• US passport: 2 × 2 inches (51 × 51 mm), head between 25 mm and 35 mm.
• Schengen visa (Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs): 35 × 45 mm, with the face at least 13 mm from the eyes to the bottom of the chin.

Digital photos: pixels, kilobytes and format

Online applications describe the photo in pixels and file size instead. The figures on the official pages:

• US passport or visa, online: square, from 600 × 600 to 1200 × 1200 px, 240 kB or less, JPEG.
• UK passport, online: at least 600 px wide and 750 px tall, from 50 KB to 10 MB, taken in the last month.
• Canada passport renewal, online: JPEG, 3:2 portrait, at least 1200 × 1800 px and at most 3000 × 4500 px, from 200 KB to 5 MB, head 45% to 50% of the photo height.

Editing rules: often stricter than the sizes

Several authorities limit what you may do to the file. The US page asks for the original, unedited photo without filters, says not to stretch or compress the image to resize it, and rules out digital cropping that changes the outline of your head, face or neck. Red-eye must not be edited out.

The UK says the photo must be unaltered by computer software, and for online applications: do not crop your photo, it will be done for you. A UK printed photo must not be a cut-down version of a larger picture.

Canada counts almost any change as alteration, including adjusting brightness or contrast and cropping the head and shoulders. Its online photo must be taken by a commercial photographer and saved directly from the camera's original file.

What a resizer can do, and what it can't

Where a form simply asks for a shape, a pixel size or a file-size limit, a resizer saves guesswork. It can cut the photo to the right shape without stretching it, set the exact pixels, keep the file under a limit in KB and show the head-size guide as a share of the height. For prints, it can turn millimetres and DPI into exact pixels.

It can't fix the photo itself. Uneven light, shadows on the face or behind the head, a busy background, glare on glasses, a smile, closed eyes or a blurred shot all need a new photo. The US page asks for uniform lighting and a plain white or off-white background; the UK asks for a plain light-coloured background with no shadows; Canada asks for uniform lighting without glare and a neutral expression. Our tool doesn't check faces, light or backgrounds.

Age matters too: the UK online photo must be from the last month, US photos from the last 6 months, and Canada's online photo from a commercial photographer within 6 months.

A safe order of work

Take or buy the photo with the rules for light and background in mind. Read the official page for your route. If editing is forbidden, upload the original as it is. If the form only sets sizes, prepare a copy and keep the untouched original next to it, in case the application asks again.