Passport photo and visa photo: what is different

The clearest statement of the difference comes from the British government, which sets both standards and therefore has no reason to be vague. Its guidance on photographs for a visa application or permission, published on 12 February 2026, lists what your photo must not be, and one item on that list is that it must not "be the same photo of you that is in your passport or identity card" (GOV.UK).

That is worth reading twice. It is not a technical mismatch. Reuse is excluded on its own terms, because the two documents are meant to hold two separate captures of the same face.

The United Kingdom, both sides

Because one government publishes both specifications, the differences can be laid out exactly rather than inferred.

| | UK passport | UK visa and permission | |---|---|---| | Minimum pixels | 600 by 750 | 600 by 750 | | File size | 50 KB to 10 MB | 50 KB to 6 MB | | Format | not specified | jpg or jpeg only | | Orientation | not specified | vertical, not mirrored or flipped | | How recent | taken in the last month | not stated as a month rule | | Reuse | a new photo for every passport | must not be your passport photo | | Framing | head, shoulders and upper body | head, shoulders and upper body, with shoulders and torso clothed |

The pixel minimum is identical, which is exactly what makes the file size trap work. An export that passed for a passport at 8 MB is rejected by the visa route without anything visibly changing. The same applies to format: the passport service does not name one, the visa route accepts only jpg or jpeg.

The mirroring rule is worth a sentence of its own, because some phones save front-camera photos flipped. A flipped photo looks correct to you and wrong to a system comparing it against anything else. The UK requirements cover both routes and which template to pick.

The United States

The visa standard is 9 FAM 303.6-2(A)(1), the Foreign Affairs Manual section on photo standards, which is readable in full and unusually detailed (US Department of State).

Two of its rules surprise people who have applied elsewhere. The first is expression: the manual states that a natural smile is considered a neutral facial expression. That is materially more permissive than Canada, which excludes smiling and frowning by name, or Australia, which lists smiling among its rejected examples. The expression rules set out how far that permissiveness goes, and why a relaxed closed mouth remains the safest choice for anyone applying in more than one country.

The second is glasses, and it runs the other way. Eyeglasses must not be worn in a photo provided for a visa application filed on or after 1 November 2016, with a narrow medical exception requiring a signed medical statement. That date matters: anyone whose last application predates it may remember a rule that no longer exists.

The rest of the manual is dimensional. A hard copy photo is 2 inches square, the head measures 1 to 1 and 3 eighths inches, roughly 25 to 35 mm, the eye level sits 1 and 1 eighth to 1 and 3 eighths inches from the bottom, and the head must take up at least half but no more than two thirds of the picture. The photo must have been taken within the past six months, on a white or off-white background, and the manual explicitly rejects busy, patterned or dark backgrounds along with grainy, overexposed or too-dark images.

For the digital side, the State Department's own photo tool enforces a 600 by 600 JPEG and carries a notice telling US citizens not to use it when renewing a passport online. The pixel range and file size ceiling widely quoted for the DS-160 upload sit on a page we could not read, because it blocks automated access, so we are not printing those numbers as confirmed. Check them on the State Department's digital image requirements page before you rely on them.

Schengen, and the shift to live capture

The Visa Code requires that a first application collect a photograph "scanned or taken at the time of application", together with ten fingerprints, to the standard in ICAO document 9303 Part 1, sixth edition. That wording has allowed a brought photograph for years.

The Visa Information System recast changed the direction of travel. Regulation (EU) 2021/1134 requires the system to record a facial image "with an indication of whether the facial image was taken live upon submission of the application", and it states that verification and identification by facial image are possible only against images recorded as taken live. The stated purpose is to counter face morphing, where one image is blended from two people so that it matches both.

The practical consequence for you is a split. For a Schengen visa, the photograph is increasingly something taken at the visa centre rather than something you supply, and a home photo has a shrinking role. For the national passport or identity card of the same country, the applicant usually still supplies the photo, and the French requirements and the German rules show how differently two neighbours handle that.

India runs three regimes at once

India's e-Visa upload is specified precisely and we read it directly. The photo must be JPEG, at least 10 KB and at most 1 MB, and the height and width must be equal, which makes it a square image rather than the usual portrait rectangle. It must show the full face from the front with the eyes open and without spectacles, on a plain light coloured or white background, with no shadows on the face or background and no borders. The portal warns that an application is liable to be rejected if the photograph is not clear or not to specification.

The Indian passport is the sharper contrast, because it is two specifications and neither is the e-Visa one. Inside India there is no photograph at all: applicants attend a Passport Seva Kendra and the image is captured there, and the instruction booklet says a photograph is not required. The exception is a child under four, who brings a print. At a mission abroad the opposite applies, and since 1 December 2025 a digital upload is mandatory, at least 630 by 810 pixels and under 250 KB.

So one country asks for a square file, no file at all, or a tall portrait file, depending on where you apply. The Indian requirements set out which applies to you.

China, where the visa spec is public and the passport spec is not

China's visa photo is specified and we confirmed it. The online upload through the China Consular service must be JPEG, no larger than 354 by 472 pixels, and between 40 KB and 120 KB. A print is 33 by 48 mm on glossy paper. The domestic passport photo is captured at the counter rather than published as an upload rule, and the 390 by 567 pixel figure that circulates widely appears on no official Chinese page.

What to do about it

Pick the template for the document you are actually applying for, not the one you made last time. Where a country has separate passport and visa templates on this site, they encode different limits, and the export is sized to the one you chose.

Then check the age and the route. A visa photo that is fine today may be outside the six month window by the time an appointment comes round, and the published refusal reasons show how often the paperwork rather than the picture is what fails.