How to Make a Passport Size Photo at Home

To make a passport size photo at home, take a straight-on photo against a plain light wall, open Passport Size Photo, choose your country's size (2 × 2 in or 35 × 45 mm), keep "Top (faces)" selected, drop the photo in and press Resize. You get a 300 DPI JPG that prints at the exact size or uploads to online forms.

What size is a passport photo?

Sizes differ by country. These are the presets in the tool:

Size	Pixels at 300 DPI	Used for
2 × 2 in (51 × 51 mm)	600 × 600	USA passport and visa
35 × 45 mm	413 × 531	UK, Schengen countries and many others
50 × 70 mm	591 × 827	Canada
33 × 48 mm	390 × 567	China visa
20 × 25 mm	236 × 295	Stamp-size photos

Rules change from time to time. Always check your government's official page before you apply.

How do I take a good passport photo with my phone?

1. Find a plain background. A white or light grey wall with no pattern or shadows.
2. Use soft, even light. Face a window in daylight. Avoid overhead lights that throw shadows under your eyes.
3. Ask someone to take it. Selfies distort faces because the camera is too close. The helper should stand about 1.5 m (5 ft) away, holding the phone at your eye level.
4. Look straight at the camera with a neutral expression and your mouth closed. Keep both ears and your eyebrows visible.
5. Remove glasses unless your country allows them. Many, including the US and UK, now require no glasses.
6. Take several shots and pick the sharpest.

Leave plenty of space above your head and around your shoulders. The tool crops the photo for you, so it's better to have too much space than too little.

How do I resize it to the right size?

1. Open Passport Size Photo.
2. Choose your size in the Size list.
3. Keep Fill and crop and Top (faces) selected. This fills the frame and keeps your head near the top, where passport rules expect it.
4. If the online form has a file size limit, type it in Max file size (KB).
5. Drop your photo and press Resize, then download the JPG.

The JPG is marked as 300 DPI, so it prints at exactly the right physical size.

How do I print a passport photo at home?

• Open the JPG and print at 100% / actual size. Turn off "fit to page" or "scale to fit".
• Use glossy or matte photo paper; plain paper is usually rejected.
• Cut carefully along the edges with a ruler and craft knife.
• Many photo shops print a 4 × 6 inch photo cheaply. You can place several copies on one sheet with a photo editor, then cut them out.

What makes a passport photo get rejected?

• Shadows on the face or background
• Head too small or too large in the frame
• Blurry or pixelated photo, often from a screenshot or heavy zoom
• Tinted glasses, hats or hair covering the eyes
• A filter, beauty mode or edited skin
• Smiling with teeth showing, where a neutral expression is required

Turn off beauty filters and portrait mode before taking the photo; they change your features and blur the edges.

Do I need a specific file size for online applications?

Many visa and passport portals limit uploads to a certain number of KB, often between 50 KB and 240 KB, and sometimes give a minimum pixel size. Use the Max file size field when resizing, or run the photo through Compress to Exact KB afterwards. Our guide to compressing to 20 KB, 50 KB or 100 KB has troubleshooting tips for picky forms.

Is my photo uploaded anywhere?

No. The crop and resize happen inside your browser, so your ID photo stays on your device. That matters for documents you wouldn't want stored on a stranger's server.

Make your photo now with Passport Size Photo. If your phone saved it as HEIC, convert it first with HEIC to JPG.