US Passport Photo Service – US Passport, Immigration & Visa Pictures

• Photo must be taken against a uniformly lit white or slightly off-white background.
• Showing full-face view with subject facing and looking directly into the camera
• Taken with neutral facial expression or if supervised by a professional photographer, with natural smile with both eyes open and not squinting
• Printed in full color on a matte or slightly glossy high quality photographic paper using a digital dye sublimation printer. Inkjet printing is not accepted.
• Photo size must be 51x51mm in size (2x2in) and accurately cut to avoid any cut marks
• Head size must be between 1 and 1 3/8 inches (25 and 35mm) from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin
• The clothing should be the same as you normally wear daily
• Clothing that has emblems, specific service patterns or camouflage attire or clothing that represents a uniform cannot be used, unless this type of clothing is worn daily for religious purposes
• Hats and other head coverings cannot be worn unless they are a part of attire for religious purposes
• No electronic devices such as hand-free headsets or headphones must appear in a photograph
• If wearing glasses are part of your daily routine, only prescription and non-tinted glasses are allowed to be worn. A medical certificate confirming the glasses prescription might be required at the time of application.

Electronic Visa picture files are an essential part US visa application. If the image is not properly formatted per visa specifications, the US government visa application system will not allow to submit an online application.

The digital visa photo image must follow the specifications as outlined:

Photo dimensions
The image must have a square aspect ratio with minimum acceptable size of 600×600 pixels and maximum size of 1200×1200 pixels.

Photo color
The photo must be in full color and digitized in 8-bits per color channel resulting in 24 bits per pixel color. It must be encoded in sRGB color space.

File format
Acceptable photo document digital file format is JPEG with compression adjusted to produce a file size between 100kb and 240kb. Images compressed to produce file sizes below 100kb do not retain sufficient quality and may not pass application verification process.

Photo Scanning
If you have a printed photo and you would like to digitize the photo, it must be scanned by a professional scanner using resolution of at least 300dpi and the resulting photo must be at least 600×600 pixels in size.

Digital image submission
Digital files must be submitted online in the original form as provided by a professional photo studio. Images cannot be adjusted, cropped or altered in any way.