How to take a passport photo at home that gets accepted

A passport photo is one of the few photographs with a specification. The dimensions, the size of your head inside the frame, the background colour and your expression are all written down by the issuing authority, and a clerk or an automated check compares your photo against them. That is also why doing it at home works: the rules are public, the camera in your phone is more than good enough, and the sizing and background can be handled by software. What software cannot fix is a photo taken badly, so most of this guide is about the thirty seconds before you press the shutter.

Take the photo properly

Light. The most common reason home photos are rejected is shadow: on the face, under the chin or on the wall behind. Stand facing a window during the day, with the window behind the person holding the phone. Do not use flash and do not stand under a ceiling light, which puts shadows in the eye sockets. If one side of your face is darker than the other, turn slightly or move a white sheet of paper or a towel on the dark side to bounce light back.

Distance and height. Stand about a metre from a plain wall, so the wall is out of focus and your own shadow does not fall on it. Have someone else hold the phone at your eye level, about one and a half metres away, and leave plenty of space around your head: the tool will crop to the official frame, and it needs room to do so. Do not use the selfie camera at arm's length; the close distance distorts the nose and forehead.

Face. Look straight into the lens, both eyes open, mouth closed, neutral expression. Hair off the face and not covering the eyebrows or eyes. Remove glasses, which several countries, including the United States since 2016, no longer accept at all, and which cause reflections everywhere else. Head coverings are allowed only for religious or medical reasons and the face must still be fully visible from chin to forehead. No uniforms, no headphones, and nothing that looks like a costume.

Recency. Most authorities require a photo taken within the last six months. Use a new photo, not a nice old one.

The background

Requirements say "plain" and "light": white or off-white for most countries, with a few specifying light grey or cream. A home wall is rarely uniform enough, which is where the Passport Photo Maker helps most: it removes the background with an on-device AI model and replaces it with white, so a textured or slightly coloured wall stops being a problem. The model does its best work on the same photo that a clerk would like: even light, a clear edge between your hair and the wall, and no one else in the frame. A busy background with objects at head height can leave artefacts around stray hairs, so a plain wall is still the better starting point even though it does not need to be perfect.

Sizes by country

These are the common specifications at the time of writing. They change occasionally, and the issuing authority's current page is the only source that counts, so check it before applying.

Document	Print size	Digital	Notes
US passport and visa	2 × 2 in (51 × 51 mm)	600 × 600 to 1200 × 1200 px, JPEG	Head 1 to 1 3/8 in tall; no glasses; white or off-white background
UK passport	35 × 45 mm	at least 600 × 750 px	Plain light background; no shadows; neutral expression
Schengen visa / most EU IDs	35 × 45 mm	varies by country	Face 70 to 80% of the height (ICAO standard)
India passport	2 × 2 in (51 × 51 mm)	varies by portal	White background, full face, no glasses recommended
Canada passport	50 × 70 mm	digital accepted for some applications	Paper photos must be taken by a commercial photographer; check before relying on a home print
Australia passport	35 × 45 mm	varies	Head 32 to 36 mm from chin to crown

The passport photo sizes page lists more than 45 document types with their dimensions. Most share a handful of sizes (35 × 45 mm alone covers over thirty of them). Pick your document in the tool, or another document with the same size, and the crop and print resolution are set for you. Three sizes on that list are not in the English tool yet: 40 × 40 mm (Argentina), 35 × 50 mm (Malaysia) and 26 × 32 mm (Spain, which is on the Spanish version of the tool).

Digital or print

Online applications want a digital file, and they usually specify a pixel size, a file type and a maximum file size. The tool produces the digital photo at the right pixel dimensions; if the portal also limits the file to, say, 240 KB, the compress photo for passport page shrinks it to the number you type without changing the dimensions. Some portals additionally ask for a specific DPI value in the file; the DPI Changer sets that tag without touching the pixels.

Paper applications want prints, and here the saving is real. A pharmacy charges a fixed price for two photos. The tool lays several copies of your photo on a standard print sheet (a 4 × 6 inch print for most presets), which any photo kiosk or online print service prints for the price of a single print. Print it at 100% size, never "fit to page", and cut along the edges with a ruler. Use proper photo paper: a home inkjet print on plain paper is a common reason for rejection.

Why your photo should not go to a passport-photo website

The photo on your identity document is, by definition, the one picture that identifies you. Most passport-photo sites upload it to their server to do the cropping and background removal, and you have no way to know how long it stays there. Here the background removal model runs in your browser and the cropping is done with the browser's own canvas, so the picture never leaves your device. It also means there is no account, no watermark on the "free" version and no charge at the end.

Before you submit, check it yourself

• Eyes open and clearly visible, looking at the camera; nothing covering the face.
• No shadow on the face or behind the head; even skin tone across both cheeks.
• Head centred, not tilted, with the top of the hair and the shoulders in the frame.
• Background plain and light, with no halo or cut-off hair at the edges.
• Natural colours: not too dark, not washed out, no filters, no retouching.
• The file meets the portal's pixel size, format and file-size limits, or the print is on photo paper at the exact size.