How to take a passport photo at home that gets accepted
2026-10-19 · 5 min read
Nearly every passport authority publishes the same handful of rules, and nearly every rejected home photo breaks one of them. Here is the short list, followed by how to produce a compliant file and print in a few minutes.
The rules almost everyone shares
- Plain, evenly lit background. White or light grey for most countries (the UK and Germany prefer light grey; the US and India require white). No shadows on the wall.
- Head size. The face usually fills 70 to 80 percent of the frame height; the US specifies 1 to 1.4 inches of head in a 2-inch photo, the UK 29 to 34 mm in a 45 mm photo.
- Neutral expression, eyes open, mouth closed, no glasses in most countries since 2016; no hats except for religious reasons, and then the face must be fully visible.
- Recent. Within six months for the US, one month for the UK, ten days for the UPSC form in India.
- No retouching. Cropping and background cleanup are fine; smoothing skin or changing features is not.
Taking the picture
Stand about 1.5 metres in front of a plain wall, with the window or lamp in front of you and slightly above, never behind. Have someone take the photo from eye level, two to three metres away, with the phone's main camera rather than the selfie camera (less distortion). Leave room around the head; the crop comes later.
Making the file
Open the passport photo tool and pick your country: the preset sets the size (35 × 45 mm, 2 × 2 inches, 50 × 70 mm and others), the background colour and 300 DPI. Drag the frame so the head sits inside the guide, run, and download. For online applications, turn on the size cap if the portal has a kilobyte limit. The spec registry lists the dimensions, limits and official pages for 44 countries and 8 exam portals.
Printing
Choose the A4 or 4 × 6 inch sheet to print several copies with cutting guides; a pharmacy or supermarket photo kiosk prints a 4 × 6 for well under a dollar. In the print dialog select actual size, not fit to page, so the 300 DPI value in the file is respected and the photo comes out at the real dimensions.
Why this is private
The whole process runs in your browser. Your photo is never uploaded, which is why the tool also works offline and why there is no account and no queue. Check the privacy proof if you want to see it for yourself.