Passport photo or visa photo?

Same print, different file

In the United States the printed photo is interchangeable. Passport and visa applications both take a 2 × 2 in photo — 50.8 mm square — with the head 25 to 35 mm from chin to crown on a white or off-white background (travel.state.gov). One sheet of prints covers both.

The file is a different object. A DS-160 upload must be square, in colour, and between 600 × 600 and 1200 × 1200 pixels, which the photo in your camera roll almost certainly is not. If that passport was issued outside the United States, it is the wrong shape entirely.

Two rules settle the question before any measurement is taken. Most authorities publish a window the photograph must fall inside — the UK's is one month — and Brazil refuses a photograph that has already appeared in a passport.

The US: one print, two file rules

The State Department applies the same geometry to a US passport photo and a US visa photo: 2 × 2 in with a head of 25 to 35 mm chin to crown, which the visa pages express as a proportion — 50 to 69 per cent of the image height. The passport spec adds one the visa spec does not: the eyes sit 28 to 35 mm above the bottom edge, so a correctly sized head can still sit too low. Both carry the same quirks — a closed-mouth smile is allowed, and glasses have not been accepted since November 2016.

The divergence is in delivery. The State Department's digital image requirements state that the image "must be in a square aspect ratio (the height must be equal to the width)", minimum 600 × 600 px, maximum 1200 × 1200 px, "in color (24 bits per pixel) in sRGB color space", and JPEG (travel.state.gov). A byte ceiling is widely quoted for this upload as well; we could not confirm it from a primary source, so the figure to work to is whatever the form itself states (file size). Against a 2-inch print that is a resolution range of 300 to 600 DPI: at 300 DPI a 2 × 2 photo is exactly 600 × 600, at 600 DPI exactly 1200 × 1200. Scan it at 200 DPI and you get 400 × 400, which the portal will not take (pixels and DPI, file size).

Why 35 × 45 mm cannot become a DS-160 upload

This is the reuse attempt that fails most predictably: cropping a good 35 × 45 mm national passport photo into a square for a US visa. Squaring 35 × 45 mm leaves 35 × 35 mm, and a UK passport photo carries a head of 29 to 34 mm chin to crown (GOV.UK). Inside a 35 mm square that head fills 83 to 97 per cent of the height, against a US range of 50 to 69 per cent. The missing ingredient is headroom that was never photographed.

It fails as a file too. A UK digital photo is at least 600 × 750 pixels, a 4:5 rectangle; squaring it means discarding a fifth of the height or inventing a fifth of the width, and inventing pixels is editing, not cropping (why 2 × 2 and 35 × 45 differ; head size).

One country, two different photos

Canada shows that "a passport photo" is not a category. Its passport photo is 50 × 70 mm with a head of 31 to 36 mm, only 44 to 51 per cent of the frame (Canada.ca). IRCC's specifications for a temporary resident visa ask for a minimum frame of 35 × 45 mm with the head at the same 31 to 36 mm (Canada.ca). Identical head, different paper, different photograph: in a 45 mm frame it fills roughly 69 to 80 per cent. Trimming the passport print down removes background, not subject.

Schengen visa photos are not European passport photos

The 35 × 45 mm figure quoted everywhere for a Schengen visa photo describes consular practice rather than a rule you can point at. The EU Visa Handbook specifies no dimensions at all — it defers to ICAO Doc 9303 Annex 11 — and the EU's own guideline gives a width of 35 to 40 mm and no height. What is stated consistently is a face at 70 to 80 per cent of the frame on a plain light-coloured background, which leaves the consulate's instruction sheet as the operative document. German missions ask for "1 biometric passport-size photograph, not older than 6 months" (Auswärtiges Amt). A national passport photo is therefore not automatically a visa photo, even in the same country:

• Germany asks for a 32–36 mm head at 70 to 80 per cent, and since 1 May 2025 accepts only digital photos for its own passports and ID cards, taken at the authority or sent by the photographer — so there is no home-made German passport photo left to reuse.
• France measures 32–36 mm excluding hair, forbids white, and requires a professional or an approved ePhoto booth.
• Netherlands wants 26–30 mm — visibly smaller than Germany on identical paper — plus a face width of 16 to 20 mm ear to ear.
• Italy states a width of 35–40 mm and no height, and rejects out-of-range photos in software with no operator override.

The Schengen visa photo tool targets the 70–80 per cent band, and each spec has its own country page. Background splits the same way: white is not the default, and the background page lists it.

The clock that voids reuse regardless

Before comparing a millimetre, work out when the photograph was taken. The window applies to the photograph, not the document it was made for, so one that satisfied an application can be too old a fortnight later.

• United Kingdom: the photo "must have been taken in the last month" (GOV.UK). One from your last renewal expired about four weeks after you sat for it.
• Mexico: no more than 30 days old, the strictest in this set, plus a ban on glasses and on smiling.
• US visas: "taken within the last 6 months to reflect your current appearance", and a consulate will ask for a new one if the image no longer looks like you, even inside that window (travel.state.gov).
• Schengen visas: six months at the German missions above, though each consulate sets its own.
• Canada: no window published, but the photographer's stamp carries the date.

Where an authority publishes nothing we will not invent a figure. Treat an undatable photo as one to retake; if you are renewing, the upload is usually the hard part.

Refused for having been used before

Brazil adds a rule that catches applicants who satisfy every measurement. Its consular passport photo page states plainly: "Não serão aceitas fotos utilizadas em passaportes anteriores" — photos used in previous passports will not be accepted (MRE). The same page asks for a 2 × 2 in photograph — the 5 × 5 cm quoted at consulates — on white, eyes open, expression neutral, and "recente, preferencialmente, tirada há menos de 6 meses": recent, preferably under six months old. No head height is published, so a millimetre figure quoted for Brazil did not come from the ministry.

The unwritten version applies everywhere. If your face has changed in a way an officer would notice — a beard grown or removed, glasses adopted, a child who has carried on growing — a compliant old photo is still the wrong one. Baby photos age fastest, and are reused most often because they were hardest to take.

What to do with the photo you have

1. Name the target spec — not "a passport photo" but the document and country.
2. Date it. Outside a published window, or undatable, means retake.
3. Check whether it has been submitted before. For Brazil that alone is disqualifying.
4. Measure the head in millimetres rather than by eye. It is fixed the moment you crop, and it is the measurement that fails most photos.
5. Check shape and pixels: square at 600 × 600 to 1200 × 1200 for the DS-160; 4:5 at 600 × 750 or more for a UK upload; 3:2 at 1800 × 1200 or more for Canada.
6. Check the background against the target, not habit. White is required in the United States and forbidden in France.

One boundary runs under all of it. Cropping and resizing are what every authority asks you to do; retouching is a different act, and it is where an adapted photo becomes a rejected one. GOV.UK requires the photo be "unaltered by computer software", and the State Department tells applicants not to change photos using "computer software, phone applications or filters, or artificial intelligence", and checks for AI use (all five authorities).

So the safe way to adapt a photo you own is to reframe it and nothing else. Our photo checker runs in your browser, crops to any of 82 official formats, reports head height and eye line in millimetres against the authority's published range, and flags sharpness, exposure, lighting, background and resolution — without touching your face. Nothing is uploaded; no watermark, no limit. The free iOS app does the same on a phone but gives one free export before asking for Pro, so the website is the unlimited one. Neither can promise acceptance; the authority decides.

If reframing works, the 4 × 6 template tiles six 2 × 2 photos on one sheet. If not, a fresh photo takes ten minutes.