The Complete Guide to UK Passport Photos in 2026

What are the UK passport photo requirements?

A printed UK passport photo must be 45 millimetres high by 35 millimetres wide, with your head measuring 29mm to 34mm from the crown of your head to the bottom of your chin. The background must be plain light grey or cream, your expression neutral with your mouth closed, and the photo must have been taken in the last month. For an online application you can skip printing entirely and supply a digital file of at least 600 by 750 pixels, between 50KB and 10MB.

Those five numbers carry most of the rejections. The rest of this guide explains where each one comes from and how to hit it without a photographer.

This is the overview article. Each section links to a deeper piece on that single rule, because most people arrive with one specific problem rather than a general question.

Size and dimensions

The frame is 45mm tall, 35mm wide — portrait orientation, not landscape. People routinely quote it as "45 by 35" and then print it the wrong way round, which is why it is worth stating explicitly.

Within that frame, your head must occupy between 29mm and 34mm measured chin to crown. On a 45mm-tall photo, a 29mm head fills roughly 64% of the height and a 34mm head roughly 76%. That is a narrow target and it is the specification people miss most often, because the instinct is to frame a portrait the way you would for any other purpose — too much space above the head, too much shoulder.

Two failure modes, both common:

• Camera too far away. The head lands under 29mm, and the result looks like a holiday snapshot with a lot of wall in it.
• Camera too close. The head exceeds 34mm, the crown gets cropped, or the lens distorts your features at short range.

The fix is distance plus crop rather than distance alone: stand further back than feels right, shoot at a normal focal length, then crop to the frame. See UK passport photo size requirements for the measurement method and the margins around the head.

Background

The background must be plain light grey or cream. Not white, despite what almost everyone assumes.

The reason is practical rather than bureaucratic. A pure white background gives an examiner nothing to separate your head from — pale skin, grey hair and light clothing all blur into it at the edges, and the automated systems that read the photo lose the outline of your face. A light grey or cream field keeps that boundary readable.

The background also has to be genuinely plain: no pattern, no texture, no visible join where a sheet meets the floor, no shadow cast onto it by you. Shadows on the backdrop are technically a background failure rather than a lighting failure, though they have the same cause.

See what background colour a UK passport photo needs for how to improvise one and why white keeps being rejected.

Expression and pose

The requirement is a neutral expression with your mouth closed, eyes open and clearly visible, looking straight at the camera, head square to the lens.

"Neutral" means what it says. No smile, not even a slight one. No raised eyebrows, no frown, no pursed lips. This is the rule people find hardest, because being told to look neutral into a camera reliably produces a strained expression that is not neutral at all.

Your head must also face the camera squarely. A tilt backward, forward or to the side is a rejection in its own right — examiner guidance lists it explicitly — and tilting is a common unconscious compensation when someone is trying to avoid glare or a double chin.

See the neutral expression rule for the technique that works, which is essentially to relax the jaw and shoot on an exhale.

Glasses, head coverings and what to wear

Glasses are permitted but discouraged. The GOV.UK wording is "do not wear glasses in your photo unless you have to do so," and they can never be sunglasses or tinted. If you keep them on, the failure modes are glare on the lens, frames crossing the eyes, and residual tint in photochromic lenses. See the glasses rules.

Head coverings are not allowed except when worn for religious or medical reasons, and where worn they must not obscure the face — the full face from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead must be visible. See head coverings and religious dress.

Clothing has fewer written rules than people expect, but the ones that exist matter: avoid anything that reads as a uniform, and avoid colours that match a light grey or cream background, because a pale top merges into the backdrop and destroys the shoulder line. See what to wear in a passport photo.

Lighting

There is no numeric lighting specification, which is precisely why lighting causes so many rejections — there is nothing to measure yourself against. What the guidance requires is that the photo shows a clear, true likeness with no shadows on the face or the background, no red-eye, and no glare.

In practice one setup does almost all the work: stand facing a window during daylight, with the window in front of you and the plain backdrop behind. Flash off. Overhead lighting off, because a ceiling light directly above casts shadows into the eye sockets and under the nose.

See the passport photo lighting guide for the arrangements that work and the ones that quietly fail.

Digital or printed?

Both routes are valid and they suit different applications.

An online application takes a digital photo, either as a file you upload or as a photo code from a booth or shop. The file specification is at least 600 pixels wide by 750 tall, between 50KB and 10MB, in colour, and "unaltered by computer software." The 50KB floor catches more people than the 10MB ceiling, and messaging apps are usually to blame — sending a photo to yourself through a chat app compresses it below the threshold. See digital passport photo file requirements for how to check a file's size and dimensions before you upload it.

A paper application needs two identical printed photos, which is where the 45mm by 35mm measurement becomes literal.

See digital vs printed passport photos for which applications accept which, and how booth photo codes work.

Babies and children

Children are covered by the same standard with a set of documented relaxations, and the relaxations are more generous than most parents realise.

Children under 1 do not need their eyes open, and do not need to be looking at the camera. GOV.UK explicitly suggests laying a baby on a plain light-coloured sheet and shooting from directly above — which solves the head-support problem that otherwise makes newborn photos impossible, and is covered step by step in UK baby passport photo rules.

Children under 6 do not need a completely neutral expression and do not need to be looking directly at the camera.

Nobody else may appear in the frame at any age, which is the rule that catches parents supporting a child's head. See child passport photo requirements by age, which covers the under-1 and under-6 relaxations in full.

How long a photo stays valid

Your photo must have been taken in the last month at the point you submit it. This is a rule about the photo's age, not about how long ago you looked like that.

It is also not a rule about your passport's life. Once accepted, the photo lasts the full ten years of the document. The month applies only at submission — so a photo taken for one application in March cannot be reused for a different application in July.

See how long a passport photo stays valid for how this interacts with reusing a photo across passport, licence and visa applications.

Taking the photo at home

The whole thing takes about ten minutes.

1. Find the backdrop. A plain light grey or cream wall. If you do not have one, a cream bedsheet pulled taut and taped flat works — creases read as texture, so it must be genuinely flat.
2. Stand away from the wall. About 1.5 metres. This is what stops your own shadow landing on the backdrop.
3. Face a window. Daylight, indirect, coming from in front of you. Turn off overhead lights and the flash.
4. Have someone else shoot it. At eye level, roughly two metres back. Not a selfie — arm's length distorts the face and the arm is often visible.
5. Neutral face, closed mouth, square head, eyes open.
6. Take ten. Expressions drift and blinks happen. Choosing from ten costs nothing.
7. Check at full size. Zoom in. Look for glare on glasses, shadow under the chin, a stray hair across an eye, a background join.
8. Crop to 45mm by 35mm with the head between 29mm and 34mm, or supply the file uncropped for an online application and let the service handle the framing.

Selfies are worth their own warning: they fail more often than any other method, mostly from arm's-length lens distortion and the visible arm. Whether you can use a selfie for a passport photo sets out the phone setup that does work.

The most common reasons photos get rejected

If you want the failure list rather than the rule list, the ranking is fairly stable: wrong background colour, head size outside the 29-34mm band, shadows on the face, a smile, glare on glasses, a photo older than a month, and a file that has been compressed below 50KB.

See the ten reasons passport photos get rejected for each one in detail, including what to do if you have already had one bounced.

If you would rather not judge any of this by eye, our UK passport photo service checks a photo against the published standard and returns the compliant crop.

Check your photo before you submit

If you already have a photo, the passport photo checker reads it against the main requirements, and the passport photo resizer can set it to the UK passport size.

Frequently asked questions

What size is a UK passport photo?

45 millimetres high by 35 millimetres wide, in portrait orientation. Your head must measure between 29mm and 34mm from the bottom of the chin to the crown, which is roughly 64% to 76% of the frame height.

Can a UK passport photo have a white background?

No. The requirement is a plain light grey or cream background. White is rejected because it does not separate cleanly from pale skin, light hair and pale clothing, which makes the edge of the face unreadable.

Can I smile in a UK passport photo?

No. A neutral expression with the mouth closed is required. Even a slight smile can be rejected, because it changes the geometry of the mouth and jaw that facial recognition systems measure.

How recent does a passport photo have to be?

It must have been taken within the last month at the point you submit it. Once accepted it lasts the full ten years of the passport, but you cannot reuse an older photo for a new application.

Do I need printed photos or a digital one?

Online applications take a digital photo — a file of at least 600 by 750 pixels, 50KB to 10MB — or a photo code from a booth. Paper applications need two identical printed photos at 45mm by 35mm.

Can I take a UK passport photo on my phone?

Yes, provided someone else holds the camera. Modern phone cameras exceed the resolution requirement comfortably. The problems come from selfies specifically: arm's-length distortion, a visible arm, and awkward angles.

Can I wear glasses?

Only if you need to, and never tinted or sunglasses. Your eyes must be fully visible with no glare on the lenses and no frame crossing the eye. Taking them off removes the risk entirely.

Does my baby need their eyes open?

Not under the age of 1. Children under 1 need neither open eyes nor a gaze at the camera, and GOV.UK suggests photographing them lying on a plain light-coloured sheet. Nobody else may be visible in the frame.

Sources

• GOV.UK, Get a passport photo
• HM Passport Office, Photo standards (accessible)
• GOV.UK, Apply online for a UK passport
• GOV.UK, How to take a photo for a visa application or permission