Acceptable US Passport Photos: Size, Background, and Expression

US passport photo requirements are straightforward once you see them in one place: a 2 × 2 inch color photo taken within the last six months, shot against a plain white or off-white background, with a neutral expression, both eyes open, and no glasses. Photos are the single most common reason the State Department puts applications on hold, so getting these details right the first time is worth a few extra minutes.¹

Size and Print Quality

The printed photo must measure exactly 2 × 2 inches (51 × 51 mm). Inside that frame, your head from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head (not the hairline) needs to fall between 1 inch and 1⅜ inches (25–35 mm). Hair extending past the edges is fine as long as your whole head is visible and sized correctly.¹

Print it on matte or glossy photo-quality paper. Features need to be sharp, with no blurriness, graininess, or visible printer dots. Photocopies and scans of a printed photo are not accepted; the State Department wants an original print.¹

Face, Eyes, and Expression

Face the camera directly. Head centered, shoulders square, no tilting, no turning, no looking up or down. Position yourself several feet from the lens so the camera captures your head, neck, and the top of your shoulders without distortion.²

Keep a neutral expression with your mouth closed. A small smile is allowed, but an exaggerated grin that squints your eyes or distorts your features will be rejected. Both irises and pupils need to be clearly visible, so push hair off your face before the shot.¹

Background and Lighting

Use a plain white or off-white background with no textures, patterns, or objects. A colored wall, a patterned curtain, or visible lines behind you will all trigger a rejection. Shadows on the background are treated the same as shadows on your face.¹

Light your face evenly. Overexposed photos wash out your features; underexposed ones come back too dark. Natural light from a window facing you works well at home, but watch for harsh directional light that shadows one side of your face. Aim for flat, even light with no bright spots and no shadow behind your head.

What to Wear

Wear regular street clothes. Uniforms are not accepted, including military, law enforcement, and camouflage patterns. A narrow exception applies to children 15 and under, and to civilians whose uniform aids identification, such as a commercial airline pilot.²

Small hair accessories like clips, bobby pins, and thin headbands are fine if they lie flat and don’t block your face. Jewelry and facial piercings are allowed if they don’t hide your features. Headphones and wireless earbuds have to come out.²

Glasses and Head Coverings

Remove all eyeglasses, sunglasses, and tinted lenses before the photo, and don’t rest glasses on top of your head. If you cannot remove glasses because of a medical condition such as recent ocular surgery, include a signed statement from your doctor. Even then, the frames can’t cover your eyes, and there can be no glare or shadows from the lenses.³

Hats and head coverings are prohibited unless you wear one for religious or medical reasons. For a religious covering, submit a signed statement confirming you wear it daily in public. For a medical covering, submit a signed doctor’s note. Either way, the covering has to meet three conditions:

Your full face must be visible from hairline to chin, with nothing obscuring it directly or by shadow.
The material must be one solid color with no pattern.
The fabric cannot have perforations or mesh-like textures.

No Filters, Editing, or AI

Submit the photo exactly as it came out of the camera. No filters, no retouching, no beauty mode, no background-removal tools, and no AI-generated or AI-enhanced images. If reviewers detect that the outline of your head, face, or neck has been digitally altered, the photo will be rejected.⁴

Red-eye is a common problem, and the instinct is to fix it in an editing app. Don’t. The State Department treats red-eye correction as digital manipulation. Retake the photo instead, using natural lighting or an angle where the flash doesn’t reflect directly off your retinas.⁴

Digital Files for Online Renewal

If you’re renewing online, you upload a digital photo instead of mailing a print. Every composition rule above still applies. On top of those, the file itself has to meet technical specs: JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, or HEIF format, with a file size between 54 KB and 10 MB. Don’t scan a printed photo or take a picture of a physical print. It has to be an original digital image from a camera or phone.⁴

Visa photos are a different specification. For visa applications, the image must be JPEG, between 600 × 600 and 1,200 × 1,200 pixels, no larger than 240 KB, and in sRGB color space.⁵

Babies and Young Children

The rules ease up for infants. Eyes can be partially or even completely closed, and a slight head tilt is allowed. That flexibility does not extend to older applicants.²

The easiest setup is to lay the baby on a plain white sheet, or drape a white cloth over a car seat. The child has to be the only person in the frame; a parent’s face cannot appear. You can support the baby’s head with your hands, but your hands can’t be in the shot. Remove pacifiers, toys, and bottles, and make sure nothing is blocking the child’s face.¹

If Your Photo Gets Rejected

Unacceptable photos are the leading reason applications are placed on hold. If yours doesn’t pass, you’ll get a letter or email identifying the specific problem, whether that’s shadows, wrong dimensions, digital editing, or the background.¹

That notice includes a deadline for sending a corrected photo. Respond as soon as you can so processing resumes. Miss the deadline and you may have to restart the application and pay the fees again.⁶

1
U.S. Department of State. Passport Photos
2
U.S. Department of State – Foreign Affairs Manual. 8 FAM 402.1 Passport Photographs
3
U.S. Department of State. No Eyeglasses Policy for Visa and Passport Photographs
4
U.S. Department of State. Uploading a Digital Photo
5
U.S. Department of State. Digital Image Requirements
6
U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Consular Affairs. Respond to a Passport Letter or Email