What to Wear for a Passport Photo: Shirts, Hats, and Glasses

For a passport photo, wear what you would normally wear on any given day, in a medium or dark solid color, with no hat, no glasses, and no hair falling across your eyes. The U.S. Department of State does not set a dress code, but it does set rules about what your clothing and accessories cannot do, and almost every rejection traces back to one of them. What to wear for a passport photo, in practice, comes down to picking clothes that contrast with the white background and leaving off anything that hides part of your face.

Shirt Color and Style

Casual shirts and blouses are fine. The State Department’s guidance is to wear what you normally wear on a daily basis.¹ There is one hard restriction on style: no uniforms, nothing that looks like a uniform, and no camouflage. Your clothing also cannot cover any part of your face or neck.

Color is where people trip up. The State Department doesn’t officially specify colors, but the required background is white or off-white, so a white or very light shirt makes your outline blend into the background and can cause the photo to fail biometric review. A solid medium or dark color gives clean contrast and photographs reliably. Skip busy patterns for the same reason: they can confuse the crop.

Hair and Hair Accessories

Style your hair however you like, with one rule that isn’t negotiable: no hair can hang over or obscure your eyes. Your ears do not need to be visible, so wearing your hair down over the ears is fine.²

Clips, bobby pins, and thin headbands are allowed if they lie flat and don’t cover your face or hairline.² A bulky decorative headband that sits high or wide enough to disrupt the composition will likely be flagged. When in doubt, take it out.

Hats and Head Coverings

Hats, beanies, and other head coverings are not permitted. There are two exceptions: religious headwear worn daily in public, and head coverings worn for medical reasons.¹

Religious Head Coverings

If you wear a head covering for religious reasons, submit a signed statement with your application explaining your religious activity or exercise, how it connects to your beliefs, and why the covering is worn continuously in public.³ The covering itself has to be one solid color, made of material without patterns or small holes, and cannot cast shadows on your face. Your full face must remain completely visible from the bottom of your chin to the top of your forehead.¹

Medical Head Coverings

For a medically necessary head covering, include a signed statement from your doctor. The same photo rules apply: full face visible, no shadows, solid-color material with no patterns.¹

Glasses

Take them off. Prescription glasses, sunglasses, and tinted lenses are all disallowed. The State Department removed the old exception for regular prescription eyewear because glare, shadows, and frame obstruction caused too many identification failures.¹

A narrow medical exception exists but is genuinely rare. The example the State Department gives is someone with recent eye surgery who needs glasses to protect their eyes during urgent travel. That kind of case requires a signed statement from your doctor explaining the medical necessity, and even then the frames cannot cover your eyes and there can be no glare, reflections, or shadows on the lenses.⁴ “I wear glasses every day” does not qualify.

Jewelry, Piercings, and Earbuds

Small, everyday jewelry is fine. Earrings, necklaces, and facial piercings are all allowed if they don’t block any part of your face, create glare, or cast shadows. A small nose stud can stay in. Large statement earrings and reflective chains that could bounce light should come off.

Headphones, wireless earbuds, and hands-free devices are not permitted at all.¹ Earbuds catch more people than you’d expect because they’re easy to forget about.

What Children Wear

The same clothing rules apply to children: no uniforms, no hats unless religious or medical, and nothing covering the face. The child must be the only person in the photo, so no parent’s hands, arms, or clothing can appear in the frame.⁵ For babies specifically, it is acceptable if the eyes are not entirely open; all other children must have their eyes open.¹

What Gets Photos Rejected

The rejections that come back most often are the ones this article has already covered: glasses left on, head coverings without the required documentation, hair falling over the eyes, and shadows caused by accessories or clothing. A white shirt that disappears into the background belongs on the same list. A few minutes deciding what to put on before the photo is taken saves the weeks of delay that a rejection letter costs.

1
U.S. Department of State. Passport Photos
2
Foreign Affairs Manual. 8 FAM 402.1 Passport Photographs
3
U.S. Department of State. Passports and Religious Accommodations
4
U.S. Department of State. New Eyeglasses Policy for Visa and Passport Photographs
5
U.S. Department of State. Photo Frequently Asked Questions