Help

Last updated 16 September 2026

These are the questions the flow actually produces, answered properly rather than in one line. If yours is not here, email support@idphoto.now and it probably belongs on this page.

Your file

My photo is a HEIC file and you say you cannot check it

That message is accurate and it is worth explaining, because it looks like a bug and is not.

HEIC and HEIF are Apple's default photo formats. The State Department accepts them for the online renewal upload — its own list is "a JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, or HEIF file" (source(opens in a new tab)). So your file may well be fine for them. The problem is at our end: we cannot open its pixels.

We decode images with pure JavaScript libraries, and there is no HEIC decoder in that set. Adding one would mean running a large C library, compiled to WebAssembly, against files that strangers upload — and that particular library had dozens of security advisories published against it in a single year with essentially one maintainer looking after it. Between "open untrusted HEIC files with that" and "tell the customer we could not read it", we chose the second. If we ever add HEIC decoding it will run boxed in, with a hard timeout and a size cap applied before the decoder sees a byte.

What we will not do is pass a file we never opened. A HEIC upload reports the readability check as a plain failure, with instructions, instead of a green tick we have not earned.

To get a JPEG out of an iPhone:

• For photos you already have: open the photo, tap Share, choose "Save to Files" and pick JPEG when offered.
• For photos you are about to take: Settings, then Camera, then Formats, then Most Compatible. Every photo after that is a JPEG. Take the passport photo again.

Note that the paper-application profile only accepts JPEG and PNG from you in the first place. That is our own limit — the thing you submit on paper is a print, and the State Department publishes no upload format for that route at all.

How big can my file be?

Our upload ceiling is 25 MB, which is our number and not a State Department one. For online renewal, State's own published band is between 54 KB and 10 MB, and we check against that. We also refuse files whose headers describe something that is not a normal photograph — an image that claims to be 25,000 pixels wide, for instance — before anything tries to decode them.

Do you put a watermark on my photo?

No. The file you download is the file you submit. There is no watermarked preview, no "unlock the full resolution" step, and no version of your photograph that is deliberately spoiled to make you pay.

Your report

A check says "not checked". What does that mean?

Every rule in your report ends up in one of exactly four states.

Result	What it means
Looks right	We measured it and it meets the published requirement.
Needs fixing	We measured it and it does not. The report tells you what to change.
A person will check	We cannot settle it from the file, or it is close enough to a limit that a judgement is needed. A trained reviewer decides, on every paid order.
Not checked	We did not check it. Not a pass, not a fail — no claim at all.

There are two reasons a rule lands in that last row.

1. The authority does not publish a number for it. There is, for example, no published pixel size, aspect ratio, colour space or DPI for either US passport route. Rather than borrow a number from somewhere else and quietly measure you against it, we record the parameter as unknown and report it as not checked, with the reason.
2. It is not something a file can answer. Whether your expression is neutral, whether a head covering is religious attire, whether the light behind you has left a shadow — those are judgements, and a person makes them.

Every report also carries a coverage line saying how many checks actually ran, so "we checked your photo" never has to be taken on trust. More on the reasoning behind this is on the standards we check against.

Why do you need a human reviewer at all?

Because the rules that get photographs refused are mostly not measurable. Look at what the State Department actually asks for: a neutral expression with the mouth closed, both eyes open and the coloured part of each eye clearly visible, no shadow on the background, no glasses, a head covering only if it is religious attire and only if the material has no patterns or small holes, and nothing that looks like a uniform. Some of those are judgement calls even for a person; none of them is a threshold you can put in a spreadsheet.

There is no face detector in the service today, and we do not pretend otherwise — head size, head tilt, eye line, centring and "is there exactly one person in this photo" all report as not checked by the software and are measured by a reviewer by hand on every paid order.

The alternative would be a model that guesses and a green tick that means nothing. A guess that turns out to be wrong costs you an application, not a photo check.

Why did you refuse to take my money?

Because the free check found something that makes the photograph unusable — the wrong format, a file we cannot open, something that is not an image. Charging you for a report on a file we already know cannot be submitted would be indefensible, so checkout refuses to open. Upload a different photo; checking is free every time, with no limit.

After you have paid

What happens if the reviewer rejects my photo?

They have to tell you why, in a sentence you can act on — the system will not record a rejection or a change request without a written message to you, and it refuses anything too short to be useful. The reason is also recorded against a fixed list of codes, so "background not plain" and "shadow on the background" stay distinct things rather than becoming one vague note.

Then:

• Uploading another photo costs nothing. It runs under the same order, and the payment is untouched. There is no limit on retakes and no second charge.
• If you would rather stop, you get your money back. See the refund policy.

If you already had a photograph approved and then upload a new one, the approved file stays downloadable until the new one is approved in its place. A retake never leaves you with nothing.

How long does the review take?

We do not publish a figure, because we have not measured one honestly yet. If you have a deadline, do not plan it around us. When we have a number we can stand behind, it will appear here and on the order page.

Getting back to your order

How do I open my order on another device?

An order is tied to the browser that created it, by a cookie. That is what stops someone who learns your order reference from opening your photograph — and it also means a new phone, a new laptop or a private window will not recognise you.

On your order page there is a section headed Get to this order on another device. Enter the email address you used, and we issue a single-use link. Opening it proves you control that inbox, which is what lets us show you the order anywhere. The link works once and expires after an hour.

Two caveats, both real. First, during the pilot that link is not actually emailed — no transactional email provider has been chosen yet, and the page says so on screen rather than leaving you watching an empty inbox. Second, once email is live, some corporate mail gateways and link scanners open links before you do, which can burn a single-use link. If a link says it has already been used and you never clicked it, that is usually why. Ask for another; it costs nothing.

What if I lose the email, or never had one?

Your order reference — the code starting ord_ — is not a password. Knowing it authorises nothing on its own, and neither does a payment id, a receipt number or the email address on the order. This is deliberate: those identifiers appear in inboxes, on bank statements and in forwarded messages, and if any of them opened an order then a forwarded receipt would be a key to somebody's face.

So the routes back in are: the original browser, or a fresh single-use link to the email address on the order. If you have neither, email support@idphoto.now. We will help — but we will not hand an order to someone whose only evidence is that they know the reference, and you should be glad we will not.

Do I need an account?

No. You do not need one to check a photo and you do not need one to buy. Typing your email address at the payment step does not create an account, does not log you in, and does not link up any other orders you may have placed with the same address — an email address on an order is not proof that the person holding it placed the order.

Your photograph and your data

How long do you keep my photo?

24 hours if the order was never paid for. 30 days if it was, so you can come back for the file. Or until you delete it, which you can do at any moment with a button at the bottom of your own order page.

Deletion removes the image files. It keeps the order and accounting record, which holds no photograph, and it is not reversible — a deleted photograph is never recovered or regenerated. If that happens and you still need a photo, a fresh upload under the same order costs nothing. The full detail is on delete your photos and data.

Is my photo used to train anything?

No. We do not train models on customer photographs, we do not build a face-recognition database, and we do not create or keep biometric templates or embeddings. There is no face detector in the service at all. The full list of things we have decided never to do is on the privacy policy.

Does my photo still contain my location?

Possibly — and this one is worth knowing. Because we hand your original file back unchanged, any metadata your camera wrote stays in it, including GPS coordinates if your phone records them. We record only that a location block exists; we never read or store the coordinates themselves. We also do not strip them, because stripping them would mean altering the file. If it matters to you, turn location off for the camera app, or remove the location from the photo on your phone before uploading.

What we do not support

Can I use this for a US visa photo?

No. A visa photograph is a different specification, on different pages, and we have no visa profile. Checking your photo against passport rules would tell you nothing useful about a visa application.

This is also the place to clear up the most persistent confusion in this subject. If you have read that a US passport photo must be 600 × 600 pixels, or at most 1200 × 1200, or in sRGB, or under 240 kB, or scanned at 300 ppi, or that your eyes must sit 28 to 35 mm from the bottom edge — none of those is a US passport requirement. They are US visa requirements, published here:

• US visa digital image requirements(opens in a new tab) — the source of 600 × 600, 1200 × 1200, sRGB, 240 kB and 300 ppi.
• US visa photo composition template(opens in a new tab) — the source of the 28 to 35 mm eye height.

The passport pages publish none of them. Neither do we, and neither do we measure your photo against them.

Can I use this for my child's passport photo?

Not yet. Both supported profiles are marked as adult profiles. Children's and infants' photographs have their own rules — State says it is acceptable if a baby's eyes are not entirely open, while every other child must have their eyes open (source(opens in a new tab)) — and we have not built or verified a profile that reflects them. Checking a child's photo against an adult profile would give you an answer that looks authoritative and is not.

Separately: online renewal is not available for children at all. State restricts it to applicants aged 25 or older (source(opens in a new tab)).

Will you crop my online renewal photo for me?

No, and that is the right answer rather than a missing feature. The State Department's own application crops the photograph inside its flow and asks you to leave extra room around your face. A photo we had already cropped square would have removed the room its tool expects. So for online renewal we return your original file byte for byte and give you a walkthrough of their crop tool instead.

For the paper application it is different: a print has to exist at 2 × 2 inches, State runs its own cropping tool for that route, and our print layout is made under that explicit permission. You still get your untouched original as well.

Can you guarantee my photo will be accepted?

No, and neither can anybody else. The decision belongs to the issuing authority, is made by people we never speak to, and can turn on things that have nothing to do with the image. What we can do is check your photograph carefully against rules we publish with their sources, tell you plainly what we did not check, and put a trained person in front of it. Any service offering you a guarantee of acceptance is offering you something it does not control.

Still stuck

Email support@idphoto.now with your order reference. Please do not attach your photograph — see contact for why.