Green card and USCIS photo requirements

The photograph is a US passport photo, with paperwork attached

A green card filing wants the same physical object a passport application wants: a colour photograph 2 × 2 inches square, full face, frontal, on a plain white or off-white background. The Form I-485 instructions ask for two identical photographs taken within 30 days of filing, with the head measuring 1 to 1⅜ inches and the eyes 1⅛ to 1⅜ inches above the bottom edge (uscis.gov, Form I-485 instructions). In millimetres that is a head of 25.4–34.9 mm and an eye line at 28.6–34.9 mm, which is the same window the State Department's passport standard uses. One crop satisfies both.

What differs between USCIS and the passport is everything around the picture: how many copies, how recent, what is written on the back, and whether your particular form wants photographs at all. That part is set form by form, in each form's own instructions, and those instructions carry an edition date and get revised.

What the instructions specify

Three of those catch people out. The paper is specified, which argues for a photo lab over a home inkjet: thin glossy stock is what a 4 × 6 print comes back on, matte card is not. The eye line is a second measurement independent of head height, so a head can be a perfect 32 mm and still sit too low in the square. Measuring head height and eye position explains both, and the photo checker prints the two numbers in millimetres against the limits. The pencil matters more than it sounds: a ballpoint pressed into a 2 × 2 print embosses through as a ridge across the face.

On expression, the instructions describe a full face, frontal view, and settle nothing further. The US passport standard is the one authority in our verified set that permits a closed-mouth smile, but neutral satisfies every reading, so use it. Same logic on glasses: the passport standard has not accepted them since November 2016, so take them off. Head coverings for religious reasons are provided for, with the face visible. What to wear covers the rest, including why a white shirt in front of a white wall is a bad idea.

The 30-day window

Thirty days is a real figure, stated in the Form I-485 instructions and repeated in the instructions to several other family-based forms. It is not a blanket USCIS rule you can assume for whatever you are filing, and it is not something to take from a blog. It is a reason to look: your form's instructions state the window that applies to your form.

Thirty days is short. It rules out the sheet left over from a passport renewal last spring, and it makes the photograph one of the last things you do before posting. Windows this tight are not unusual: the UK wants a printed photo taken in the last month (GOV.UK), and Mexico refuses anything over 30 days old.

A second recency question sits underneath, about photographs USCIS holds rather than ones you supply. In a December 2025 policy update the agency said it may reuse a photograph collected at a biometric services appointment only where no more than 36 months have passed at filing, that it keeps discretion to require a new one, and that it will not reuse self-submitted photographs (uscis.gov newsroom). A biometrics appointment does not excuse you from the photographs your form asks for.

"Unretouched" is the rule most apps break

The instructions ask for an unretouched photograph. The State Department puts the same idea more explicitly for its own photos, telling applicants not to alter them using "computer software, phone applications or filters, or artificial intelligence", and saying it checks submitted photos for AI use. Nearly every free photo app in this category leads with one-tap AI background replacement, which is the thing being described.

The collision is almost always the background. The requirement is white to off-white, the wall behind you is beige with a shadow on it, and the obvious fix is a button that paints the background out. Cropping and resizing are a different category — every authority asks you to crop to a size, none asks you to repaint your face. That is the line this tool works to: it crops, measures and checks, and it does not retouch you. The editing ban, authority by authority shows how far it goes elsewhere; Canada's zero-tolerance list names brightness, contrast, colour and sharpness corrections outright (canada.ca).

Fix the background physically instead. Stand a metre or so from a plain light wall, face a window, and switch the ceiling light off. Getting a compliant background without editing, removing the shadow behind your head and the background page cover the whole problem.

Which forms want photographs

We are not publishing a table of USCIS forms and photo counts, because both live in each form's instructions and change between editions. The route that stays right takes two minutes: open your form at uscis.gov/forms/all-forms, open the Instructions PDF rather than the form, and read the evidence list and the checklist near the end.

Two notes while you are in there. Filing for more than one person means the photograph paragraph applies to each of them separately, and photographing an infant to the 2 × 2 specification is its own exercise. And a filing that pairs with a consular step does not reuse one file for both: a DS-160 upload has pixel rules, an I-485 wants prints. Passport photo versus visa photo works through it.

The DV lottery entry is a different thing

The Diversity Visa lottery is run by the State Department, not USCIS, and the entry is an upload rather than a print — no sheet of six, nothing to write on the back. It is a pixels problem instead of a paper one.

• Recency is six months, not 30 days. The State Department requires entry photos taken within the last six months, on a plain white or off-white background (travel.state.gov).
• The file must be square, in colour, at least 600 × 600 pixels. Black and white is not accepted. The same digital image rules cover the US visa upload, where the accepted range runs to 1200 × 1200. Hitting a file-size limit without wrecking the photo covers the compression side.
• Every person listed needs their own photograph. Group photographs are not accepted, and each child's photo must meet the same specification. A spouse or child who is already a US citizen or lawful permanent resident does not need one.
• Alteration is named as a disqualifier. The instructions say entry photos must not be digitally enhanced or altered to change your appearance in any way, and that an entry may be disqualified where photographs are not recent or have been manipulated.

Each round gets fresh instructions and an entry cannot be resubmitted once the window closes, so take the byte limits and deadlines from the current year's Diversity Visa instructions. Selection is not the end of it: the interview stage asks for prints of its own.

Printing the prints

Two prints per person, and a family filing multiplies that. Six 2 × 2 photos tile a 4 × 6 sheet exactly, 24 square inches into 24, which is the cheapest route to them. Walgreens publishes 4 × 6 prints at $0.39 each for 1–99; its passport counter is a separate in-store service at about $16.99 for two. What the pharmacy counters do compares them, and what a passport photo costs has the arithmetic.

The 4 × 6 template lays the six out with cutting guides and writes the real print density into the file, so the lab is not left assuming 72 DPI (why DPI goes missing). The US passport photo tool does the crop and the measurements in your browser — free, no upload, no account, no watermark, no limit, and it never sends the image anywhere. It works in a phone browser, so a photo taken on an iPhone can go straight through. Our iOS app does the same job natively; it is free to download and includes one free export before it asks for Pro, while the website is the one with no limit.

Before you post it

1. Prints measure 2 × 2 inches with a ruler, on thin glossy photo paper, unmounted.
2. Head 25.4–34.9 mm top of hair to chin; eyes 28.6–34.9 mm above the bottom edge.
3. Background plain white to off-white, no shadow behind the head.
4. Taken inside the window your form states — 30 days for the I-485.
5. Nothing retouched, filtered, background-replaced or run through an AI tool.
6. Name and A-Number lightly on the back, in pencil, if your instructions ask for it.
7. The right number of photographs for each person on the filing.

If something is off, the usual causes are physical — the wall, the lamp, the distance from the camera — and each is fixed by taking the picture again. The at-home checklist is the ten-minute version of that setup.