This advice holds for any passport, ID card or visa photo unless it names a document. Size, head height and background colour differ between documents, so read the rules for yours before you shoot.
Where to stand
Find the flattest, emptiest light wall you have. For a US passport the U.S. Department of State asks for a background that is “white or off-white, free of shadows, and plain without texture, objects, or lines”.
- Stand about a metre in front of the wall. Close to the wall, your shadow lands next to your head. Further away it falls on the floor.
- Skip doors and tiled walls. Panels, handles, frames and joints show up as lines behind your head.
- If you have no light wall, hang a plain sheet and pull it tight so it has no folds.
- Look at the edges of the picture. A ceiling line, a light switch or a picture hook is an object in the background.
Light
The light should fall evenly on your face from the front.
- Face a window. The person with the phone stands with their back to it. An overcast day gives the softest light.
- Turn off the ceiling light. Light from above puts shadows in the eye sockets and under the nose and chin.
- Do not put a lamp to one side. It lights one half of the face and leaves the other dark.
- Avoid direct sun. It burns out the bright side of the face and makes you squint.
- Turn the flash off. It causes red eye and throws a hard shadow on the wall.
Camera distance and height
- Keep the phone 1.5 to 2 metres away. At arm’s length the nose comes out larger and the ears smaller than they are. The distance is our advice. Your document may not give one.
- Hold the phone at eye height. Held at chest height, it makes you look down even when your head feels straight.
- Use the rear camera at its highest quality setting. Do not zoom with your fingers. Step closer or further away.
- Leave room around the head. Frame the head and the top of the shoulders with space on every side. The photo is cropped to the document’s size later, and a head too close to an edge cannot be framed.
- Take ten photos. You get a choice of expression, blink and focus.
Who holds the phone
Ask someone else if you can. They keep the distance, hold the phone level and see whether your head is tilted.
On your own, stand the phone on a shelf or a stack of books at eye height and use the timer or a voice command. An outstretched arm is too close and turns one shoulder forward.
What to tell your helper:
- Stand two good steps back, with your back to the window.
- Hold the phone at the height of my eyes.
- Get my whole head and the top of my shoulders in, with space around them.
- Tell me if my head is tilted. I cannot feel it.
Clothing and glasses
Wear what you wear on a normal day. Clothing rules differ between documents, so check yours.
- Keep the whole face visible. No scarf over the chin, no hair across the eyes, no hat. Some documents allow a head covering worn for religious reasons and others allow none.
- Glasses. Some documents ban them. The US passport rule is “Take off any eyeglasses, sunglasses, or tinted glasses.” Where glasses are allowed, the frame must not cover the eyes and the lenses must show no reflections.
- Uniforms. For a US passport application on paper: “You cannot wear a uniform, clothing that looks like a uniform, or camouflage clothing.”
- Take out headphones and earbuds. The US paper passport rules ban them by name.
Face and posture
Look straight into the lens with your head upright and your shoulders square to the camera. Keep both eyes open and your mouth closed, with a relaxed, neutral expression.
Babies and children
Lay a baby on a plain white sheet and photograph from directly above, or seat the child in front of the wall. Keep hands, toys and other people out of the picture. The US paper passport rules say no other person may be in the photo.
Do not edit the photo
Turn off beauty mode, filters and portrait blur before you shoot. Many phones apply them by default.
The U.S. Department of State says: “Submit the original, unchanged photo. Do not change your photo using computer software, phone apps or filters, or artificial intelligence.” If something is wrong with the photo, take a new one.
For a US online renewal, do not send the file to yourself by text message. It lowers the quality.
Check it
Open the best photo on a large screen and zoom in.
- Sharp. The eyelashes are crisp, with no blur or grain.
- Evenly lit. No shadows on the face or on the wall, and skin tones look natural.
- Plain background with no lines or objects.
- Eyes open and fully visible, no red eye, mouth closed.
- Head upright and facing the camera, whole head in the picture with room around it.
- Recent. US passports want a photo from the last 6 months.
Then run it through the free photo check. It frames the photo on your face at the document’s size and shows it with a watermark. Head tilt, centring and eye position are judged on that finished photo, and the report names the standard behind each result. If a rule could not be measured, the report says so.
An image model looks at the finished photo for open eyes, a closed mouth and glasses, and head height is measured on the finished photo. When a rule gets no answer or cannot be measured, the report shows “Not checked” next to it. Look at that one yourself.
No person looks at your photo unless you ask our support to, and any such view is logged. We cannot guarantee that it will be accepted. The issuing office decides.
Payments are in test mode. No order on this site can be paid for real yet. The free check works today.
Next
- Check the photo you took
- Why passport photos are rejected
- US passport photo for a paper application
- US passport photo requirements for both routes
Sources
The quotations come from the U.S. Department of State pages below. Check the source before you rely on a detail.