Digital Passport Photo File Requirements: Size, Format and Resolution

What are the file requirements for a UK digital passport photo?

A digital photo submitted with an online UK passport application must be at least 600 pixels wide and 750 pixels tall, at least 50KB and no more than 10MB, in colour, and "unaltered by computer software." Those figures come from GOV.UK's digital photo requirements.

Note what is absent: there is no DPI requirement, no millimetre measurement, and no stated head height for digital photos. Those belong to the printed specification — 45mm × 35mm with a 29–34mm head height, covered in UK passport photo size requirements — which is a different standard for a different route. Applying printed rules to a digital file is a common way to talk yourself into unnecessary work.

The specification in full

For comparison, the Home Office's visa and permission photo guidance is stricter in two places: the same 600 × 750 minimum, but 50KB to 6MB, and it must be "a jpg or jpeg file" and "vertically orientated." If you want one file that works for both a passport and a UKVI account, aim at the tighter of the two — a portrait JPEG under 6MB.

The 50KB floor is the trap

Nobody accidentally exceeds 10MB with a phone photo. People fail the lower bound constantly, and there is essentially one cause: the file has been recompressed somewhere in transit.

Things that shrink a photo below 50KB while leaving it looking fine on a phone screen:

• Messaging apps. Sending a photo to yourself on WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram and saving it back from the chat. Compression is the entire point of how those apps move images.
• Email clients offering to "resize for sending." Choosing "small" or "medium" can take a 3MB file under 100KB.
• Social platforms. Uploading to a platform and downloading the result gives you the platform's compressed copy, not yours.
• Screenshotting the photo. A screenshot of a photo is a new, smaller, lower-quality image — and on a phone it is captured at screen resolution, not camera resolution.
• Aggressive "compress image" websites. They will happily take you to 20KB.

The rule that avoids all of it: work from the original file in your camera roll. Move it to a computer by cable, AirDrop, or a cloud service that stores originals rather than optimised copies. Never round-trip a passport photo through a chat.

Why a floor exists at all

A minimum file size is an indirect quality test. Two images can both be 600 × 750 pixels while one is crisp and the other is a mess of compression artefacts — blocky edges around the hair, banding across a plain background, mush where fine detail should be.

The standard requires photos "in sharp focus, showing a strong definition and contrast between face and background." A heavily compressed file cannot deliver that even at the right pixel dimensions, and file size is a quick proxy for whether the detail survived.

The same reasoning underpins the Home Office rule that a photo must "not be a scan or photo of another photo." Rephotographing a print loses a generation of detail, adds the print's paper texture, and usually introduces glare.

Resolution: what 600 × 750 means in practice

600 × 750 is a minimum, and a low one. Every phone made in the last decade shoots far above it. You are not being asked to produce a small file — you are being asked not to produce one.

Where people get into difficulty is cropping. If you photograph yourself from across a room and then crop a small region down to head-and-shoulders, the remaining pixel count can drop below the floor. The fix is to fill more of the frame at capture time: prop the phone about 1.5 metres away rather than shooting from the far side of the room. See can you use a selfie for a UK passport photo.

Do not upscale. Enlarging a small crop back to 600 × 750 in software adds pixels without adding detail, and produces exactly the soft, artificial look that fails a sharpness check.

If you would rather not handle a file at all, a booth photo code sidesteps this entire specification — the booth produces something already conformant and you enter a code instead. See the digital passport photo code explained.

Format and orientation

Format. GOV.UK's passport page does not name a file format. The Home Office's visa guidance does: "a jpg or jpeg file." JPEG is the safe default for both.

Orientation. The photo must be portrait — taller than it is wide. The Home Office states this explicitly ("vertically orientated"); for passports it follows from the 600 × 750 minimum.

One quiet gotcha: JPEG files carry an orientation flag in their metadata, which tells software how to rotate the image for display. A photo can therefore look portrait in your phone's gallery while the underlying pixels are landscape with a rotation flag attached. Some upload tools respect the flag and some ignore it, which is why an image occasionally appears sideways after upload. If that happens, open the file, rotate it, and re-save so the pixels themselves are the right way up.

What "unaltered by computer software" permits and prohibits

This is the requirement people most often misread. It is about your appearance, not about file handling.

Not permitted:

• Filters, beauty modes, skin smoothing
• Portrait mode background blur
• Removing blemishes, whitening teeth or eyes, reshaping features
• Generative AI enhancement — several phones now apply this to faces by default
• Converting to black and white
• Opening closed eyes or otherwise fabricating detail

Normal and expected:

• Cropping to the required proportion
• Resizing, within the stated bounds
• Rotating to portrait

Every photo booth in the country crops and resizes. The rule exists so that the face in the photo is your face, measured accurately — not to prohibit the mechanics of producing a correctly sized image.

If your phone applies beautification automatically, find the setting and turn it off before you shoot rather than trying to undo it afterwards.

How to check the dimensions and size of your file

You do not need any software beyond what is already on the device.

iPhone / iPad. Open the photo in Photos, swipe up or tap the info button. The panel shows the pixel dimensions and the file size.

Android. Open the photo in Google Photos or your gallery, then tap the three-dot menu and choose Details or Info. Dimensions and size are listed.

Windows. Right-click the file, choose Properties, then the Details tab. "Dimensions" gives pixels; "Size" gives the file size in KB or MB.

macOS. Select the file in Finder and press Command-I, or press Space for Quick Look and use the info panel. Both show dimensions and size.

Two things to be careful about when you read those numbers. Size on disk is not file size — Windows and macOS both report a slightly larger "size on disk" figure that reflects how storage is allocated, not how big the file is. Use the plain size. And check the file you are about to upload, not the one in your camera roll, if you have moved or exported it in between.

What to do if the numbers are wrong

Below 600 × 750 pixels. You cropped too tightly, or you are working from a compressed copy. Go back to the original and crop less aggressively. Do not upscale.

Below 50KB. The file has been recompressed. Go back to the original file from the camera; do not try to re-inflate a small one, because the lost detail does not come back.

Above 10MB (or 6MB for a UKVI account). Export a JPEG at high rather than maximum quality, or reduce the pixel dimensions — while staying well above 600 × 750. This is a safe operation; you are discarding surplus, not detail you need.

Not a JPEG. Modern iPhones default to HEIC and some Android phones to a proprietary format. Change the camera setting to "Most Compatible" or JPEG, or export a JPEG copy. HEIC files are frequently refused by upload forms even where the guidance does not name a format.

Landscape when it should be portrait. Rotate and re-save so the pixels themselves are portrait, rather than relying on the file's orientation metadata.

None of this applies to a printed photograph, which fails on physical dimensions instead of on bytes. See digital vs printed passport photos for which applications take which format.

A pre-upload file checklist

1. Open the original file, not a copy from a chat.
2. Check the pixel dimensions. At least 600 wide, 750 tall, portrait.
3. Check the file size. Between 50KB and 10MB (6MB if it also needs to work for a UKVI account).
4. Confirm it is in colour, not greyscale.
5. Confirm it is a JPEG.
6. View it at 100%. Look for blocky edges around hair and banding in the background — signs of over-compression.
7. Confirm no filter, beauty mode or portrait blur was applied.
8. Confirm it was taken within the last month.

On Windows, right-click → Properties → Details shows dimensions and size. On macOS, select the file and press Space, then Command-I in Finder. On a phone, the photo's info panel shows both.

If you also need prints for a paper application, our printed photo products are cut to the 45mm by 35mm specification.

Check your photo before you submit

To bring a photo to the UK passport size, use the passport photo resizer. The passport photo checker then reads the result against the main requirements before you upload it.

Frequently asked questions

What size should a UK digital passport photo be?

At least 600 pixels wide by 750 pixels tall, and between 50KB and 10MB. There is no maximum pixel dimension.

What DPI does a UK passport photo need?

No DPI is specified for digital photos — DPI only becomes meaningful when an image is printed. The digital standard is expressed in pixels and file size. For printed photos, the requirement is a professional-standard print at 45mm × 35mm on plain white photographic paper with no border.

Why was my photo rejected for being too small when it looks fine?

Almost certainly because it was compressed in transit and fell below the 50KB minimum. Sending a photo through a messaging app is the usual cause. Use the original file from your camera roll.

Can I submit a scan of a printed passport photo?

It is a poor route and the Home Office's visa guidance prohibits it outright — a photo must "not be a scan or photo of another photo." Scanning loses sharpness and can introduce a greyscale cast, and black and white photos are not accepted.

What file format should I use?

JPEG. The Home Office requires "a jpg or jpeg file" for visa photos, and it is the safe default for a passport application too.

My iPhone saves HEIC files. Will that work?

Convert it. The Home Office requires "a jpg or jpeg file" for visa photos, and HEIC files are commonly refused by upload forms even where a format is not specified. Change the camera setting to "Most Compatible," or export a JPEG copy of the existing photo.

How do I check my photo's file size and dimensions?

On iPhone, open the photo's info panel. On Android, use Details in the gallery menu. On Windows, right-click and choose Properties, then Details. On macOS, select the file and press Command-I. Use the plain file size, not "size on disk."

Can I resize my photo to meet the requirements?

Yes. Cropping and resizing to meet the published specification is normal. What you must not do is alter your appearance — no filters, no retouching, no background blur — and you should not upscale a small crop, because that adds pixels without adding detail.

Sources

• GOV.UK, Get a passport photo: digital photos
• GOV.UK, How to take a photo for a visa application or permission
• GOV.UK, Get a passport photo: printed photo requirements
• HM Passport Office, Photo standards (accessible)