Guides

The 8 reasons passport photos get rejected

Nearly every rejection comes down to the same handful of mistakes. Here is what reviewers actually look for.

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What to wear for an ID photo

There are fewer rules than people expect, but the ones that exist are strictly enforced.

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How to take an ID photo at home with a phone

A phone camera is more than good enough. The setup matters more than the hardware.

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Digital upload or printed photo — which do you need?

Some applications want a file, some want prints, and a few want both at different stages.

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Passport photo background colour, by country

White isn't universal. Most of the 110 documents in our registry use one of three colours — and there's at least one real exception.

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Passport photo head size, explained (crown-to-chin)

"Fill the frame" is not the rule. Almost every authority measures a specific distance — crown of the head to chin — and most rejections come from getting this wrong.

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How many pixels does a passport photo need?

Physical size, DPI, and pixel count are three ways of describing the same photo — and mixing them up is an easy way to fail an online upload.

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Is a visa photo the same size as a passport photo?

Often, for the same country — but never assume, and never for a different country.

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2×2 inch vs 35×45mm passport photos — what's different

The two dominant sizes worldwide aren't the same shape, let alone the same size — and a photo cropped for one will never pass for the other.

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How to convert an iPhone HEIC photo for a passport photo

HEIC is Apple's default photo format since iOS 11, and almost no passport photo tool — including this one, for now — accepts it directly.

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How to resize a photo to passport or visa dimensions

Cropping to the right pixel count isn't the whole job — head size and eye position have to be correct too, or a technically-right-sized photo still gets rejected.

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How to remove the background from a passport photo

A plain, correctly-coloured background is required by nearly every document — here's why it's hard to get right with a phone camera alone, and how to fix it for free.

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