New Zealand Passport Photo Size: Pixels, KB and Rules

From the Passport photos page on passports.govt.nz (page updated 4 March 2026, read on 14 October 2026). Some photo services quote a 10 MB maximum; the official page says 5 MB.

• A colour portrait photo with a 3:4 aspect ratio.
• A digital photo in .jpg or .jpeg format.
• Between 250 KB and 5 MB in size.
• 900 to 4500 pixels wide and 1200 to 6000 pixels high.
• Less than 6 months old. Scans of printed photos are not accepted.

The page lists what makes a home photo acceptable:

• Get someone else to take it: selfies are rejected. The photographer stands about 1.5 metres away with the camera at your eye level.
• Centre your head with a clear gap around the top and sides, and include your shoulders and upper chest.
• Use a plain, light coloured background with strong contrast to your face, standing at least half a metre in front of it, with no shadows.
• Look straight at the camera with a neutral expression, mouth closed and eyes open, hair away from your face.
• Prescription glasses are allowed if they are not tinted or thick framed and show no glare; sunglasses are not.
• No hats, hoods or headbands unless for religious or medical reasons, and no filters, edits or AI tools.

1. 1

   Start from the original photo

   Use the file straight from the camera. If it is HEIC from an iPhone, convert it with HEIC to JPG, which keeps it in high quality.

2. 2

   Crop to 3:4

   Open Crop Image, pick the 3:4 preset and frame your head and shoulders with space above your hair.

3. 3

   Check the pixels

   The cropped photo must be at least 900 x 1200 pixels. Phone photos are much larger, so this is easy; if yours is above 4500 x 6000, set 1500 x 2000 in Resize Image.

4. 4

   Check the file size

   The file must be between 250 KB and 5 MB. A 1500 x 2000 JPEG at high quality is usually comfortably inside that; if it is over 5 MB, use Compress Image set to 4000 KB.

Messaging apps and some editing apps shrink photos to well under 250 KB. Re-saving such a file larger does not bring back the lost detail, so go back to the original from the camera. The online photo checker linked from the official page tests the technical requirements before you start your application.