Photo for renewing a US passport online
This is the digital photo you upload inside the State Department's online renewal application. It is not a 2 x 2 inch photo, it is not printed, and most of the numbers people quote for it do not exist. Three things below matter more than everything else on this page.
The three things people get wrong
1. State publishes no pixel dimensions for this upload. None.
No minimum width, no minimum height, no maximum, no aspect ratio, no colour space, no DPI. We read State's upload page(opens in a new tab) on 16 September 2026 — its footer said 4 May 2026 — and scanned the whole of it, every accordion expanded. The words "square", "aspect", "sRGB", "inch" and "mm" do not appear on it, and the only occurrence of "pixel" is inside the word "pixelated".
So when a site tells you your online renewal photo must be 600 x 600 pixels, it is not quoting the page that governs your application.
2. The 600 x 600 figure comes from two other places
The first is the US visa programme, a different application on the same website, which really does require a square image between 600 x 600 and 1200 x 1200 pixels, sRGB, JPEG, 240 kB or less: Digital Image Requirements for visa photos(opens in a new tab). Different document, different rules.
The second is State's own Photo Tool(opens in a new tab), which accepts JPEG only and enforces a 600 x 600 crop. That tool carries a banner, in a red box, that says:
"US Citizens: Do not use this tool if you are renewing your passport online."
"Photo Tool is intended for cropping your photo only when you are applying in person or by mail."
Its constants are the tool's own behaviour on the paper-form path. They are not requirements for this one.
3. Do not crop your photo square. State crops it for you.
The cropping happens inside the application, after you upload. State's wording: "You can reposition or crop your photo in the application", and, in the size-and-position section: "If you're not sure, leave a little extra room around your face. You can crop your photo when you upload it."
Pre-cropping to a tight square removes the room their cropper expects to have. Upload the original, uncropped head-and-shoulders photo and do the cropping in their tool.
Are you eligible to renew online at all?
State's list includes: you are age 25 or older, the passport you are renewing was valid for 10 years and is expiring within a year or expired less than five years ago, you are not changing your name or sex, you are not travelling for at least six weeks, you are in a US state or territory, and you have the passport with you undamaged.
If you are under 25, online renewal is closed to you and this page does not apply — use the paper form photo rules instead. Full conditions: Renew Online on travel.state.gov(opens in a new tab).
What State actually does publish for this photo
| What | The requirement | State's own wording |
|---|---|---|
| File format | JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC or HEIF | "The photo is a JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, or HEIF file." |
| File size | Between 54 KB and 10 MB | "The file size should be between 54 KB and 10 MB." |
| Colour and age | Colour, taken within the last 6 months | "The photo must be in color and taken in the last 6 months." |
| Where the frame ends | At the edge of your shoulders | "The bottom frame of the photo should be the edge of your shoulders near where they connect to your arms." |
| Background | Plain white or off-white, no shadows, texture, lines or objects | "A plain background with no shadows, texture, lines, or objects" |
| Expression | Neutral or a natural smile, no teeth | "Use a neutral facial expression or natural smile. Avoid showing teeth." |
| Glasses and hats | Off | "If you are wearing glasses or a hat, remove them and take the photo without them." |
| Head coverings | Allowed for religious purposes, one colour, no patterns or small holes | "You may wear head coverings for religious purposes. The head covering must be one color, and the material should not have patterns or small holes." |
| Badges and lanyards | Off | "You should also remove any employee ID badge or lanyard for your photo." |
| How the file reaches you | Not by text message, and never a photo of a photo | "To avoid making your image quality worse, do not send the image via text message." / "Do not take a photo of a printed photo or scan a physical photo to make a digital file." |
One honest note about "54 KB"
State says the size should be between 54 KB and 10 MB, not that it must be. We check it as a hard requirement anyway, which is stricter than State's own sentence — we would rather stop a file at our end than have you find out at theirs. State also does not say whether a kilobyte here means 1,000 or 1,024 bytes; we use 1,024, so our floor is 55,296 bytes. A file between 54,000 and 55,296 bytes fails our check and might well have been accepted. That is a deliberate, conservative choice, and it is written down in our standards page rather than hidden in code.
How this differs from the paper form, rule by rule
Both routes lead to the same passport, and their photo pages are not the same document. If you have been reading advice for a 2 x 2 inch photo, these are the places it will mislead you.
| Rule | Paper form (DS-11 / DS-82) | Online renewal |
|---|---|---|
| Printed size | 2 x 2 inches (51 x 51 mm) | Nothing is printed. No size is published. |
| Head size | 25–35 mm, chin to top of head | No measurement published. Frame head and shoulders, leave extra room. |
| Expression | "You can smile in your photo. Just make sure your eyes are open and your mouth is closed." | "Use a neutral facial expression or natural smile. Avoid showing teeth." |
| Cropping | You crop and print to 2 x 2 inches yourself | State crops it inside the application. Do not pre-crop. |
| File spec | None published — the artefact is a print | JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC or HEIF, 54 KB to 10 MB |
| Uniforms | Banned outright, on the page and on both forms | Not mentioned on the online page at all. See below. |
That last row is the sort of gap we refuse to paper over. The online renewal page says nothing about uniforms, camouflage, headphones or face coverings, all of which the paper page bans. We do not copy the paper rule across and present it as State's word, and we do not tell you it is fine either. A reviewer flags it, and you get told exactly why it is uncertain.
What happens to your photo after you upload it to State
Two checks happen, in this order, and both are theirs:
- An automated one, straight away: "The photo tool will check if your photo meets the basic requirements. If your photo is not acceptable, the system will let you know what you need to change. You can try again with a different photo."
- A human one, later: "An employee will review your photo after we receive your application. If there's an issue, we will send you a letter or email asking you to send us a new photo."
Which is the honest answer to "will my photo be accepted": it is decided twice, by them, after you submit. Nothing we or anyone else does before that point can settle it.
Do not edit the photo
"If your photo is unnaturally edited or filtered, we will not accept it. Do not use a photo you created or edited using artificial intelligence or other digital tools."
"If the photo has a red-eye effect on your eyes, do not edit it. Take a new photo with natural lighting."
State also states on this page that it checks for AI tools. This is the reason our online-renewal service is built the way it is: we hand your file back exactly as you gave it to us, byte for byte. We do not crop it, convert it, rotate it, re-compress it or improve it, because the file State wants is the one your camera produced. The only thing that changes is that you know what is in it.
What we check, and the one thing we cannot open
Measured by software, free, before you pay anything
- The real format of the file, read from its header rather than its name or extension.
- The file size against both ends of the 54 KB to 10 MB band.
- That it is a colour photograph rather than black and white.
- Lighting: too dark, too bright, and areas blown to pure white or crushed to pure black.
- Focus.
- The background: how evenly lit it is across the edges of the frame, whether there is texture or an object behind you, and how light it is against "plain white or off-white".
- The capture date in the file against the 6-month rule, and we say plainly when the file carries no date rather than assuming it is recent.
- Whether the file says it was last saved by editing software, or has had its camera information removed. Either sends it to a reviewer; neither is treated as proof.
Not checked by software, and the report says so
- HEIC and HEIF files. State accepts them. We cannot decode them — we can read the size of the file but not its pixels — so we will ask you for a JPEG instead and we will not take payment for a check we could not run. On an iPhone: Settings, then Camera, then Formats, then Most Compatible, and take the photo again. This is our limitation, not a State rule.
- Head size, tilt, centring and the number of people in the frame. Not measured automatically yet. A trained reviewer measures them by hand on every paid order.
- Expression, eyes, glasses, head coverings and clothing. A person judges these, including the uniform question the online page leaves open.
- Pixel dimensions and aspect ratio. There is nothing published to check them against, so the report shows "not checked" with the reason, not a tick.
What the State Department does not publish for this path
- State publishes no pixel dimensions, aspect ratio, colour space or DPI for the online renewal upload. We do not check against numbers it has not published.
- State does not say the photo must be square. Its own application crops the photo, and it tells you to leave extra room around your face.
- State’s separate Photo Tool enforces 600×600 JPEG — and the tool itself says in a red banner not to use it for online renewal. Its constants are not requirements for this path.
- The online renewal page does not repeat the paper page’s bans on uniforms, headphones or face coverings. We flag those for a human rather than assume either way.
What you get, and what it costs
- Your original photo, unchanged. Byte-for-byte the file you uploaded. This is what you upload to the State Department — their application does the cropping.
- Your checked report. Every rule we measured, what we found, and which rules only a person can judge — with the State Department’s own wording next to each one.
- Crop-and-upload walkthrough. How to position your photo in the State Department’s own crop tool, so you do not have to guess what "head and shoulders centred" means.
One payment, for one person and one document. No subscription and no account. The checks are free — you read the whole report before deciding whether to pay.
If a reviewer asks you for a different photo, uploading it again costs nothing.
Payments are in test mode. No order can be paid for real yet. The check and the report work today; the payment step is wired to a test environment and cannot charge a card.
We check your photo against the State Department’s published online-renewal rules and hand back your original file untouched, with instructions for their crop tool. We do not crop, convert or edit the file, because State asks for the original. We do not submit anything on your behalf.
What we will not do
- We will not submit your renewal. State is explicit about this: "You must complete your own online application. You cannot use a third-party service or have someone submit the application on your behalf." The only authorised place to renew online is opr.travel.state.gov.
- We will not promise your photo will be accepted. It is checked twice after you submit, by State, and that is their decision.
- We will not change your file. No crop, no conversion, no re-compression, no enhancement — the file you download from us is the file you uploaded.
- We will not quote a turnaround time we have not measured.
More detail: how the whole process works, the standards we check against and when we last read them, or both application routes compared side by side. If a photo has already come back rejected, see why passport photos are rejected. To measure a photo you already have, the photo checker is free and needs no account.