US Passport Online Renewal Photo: Size and Rules

From Uploading a Digital Photo on travel.state.gov (page updated 4 May 2026, read on 14 October 2026). Renew only through the official site; the State Department warns about unofficial renewal sites.

• File type: JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC or HEIF. Photos taken on a phone usually already save in one of these.
• File size: between 54 KB and 10 MB.
• In colour, taken in the last 6 months.
• You can reposition or crop the photo inside the application, which checks the basic requirements before you submit.

• Face the camera directly, head centred and fully visible, both eyes open, without tilting your head.
• Avoid showing teeth.
• Remove anything covering your face, including eyeglasses, unless for documented religious or medical reasons.
• A plain white or off-white background with no shadows, textures or objects; stand several feet in front of it.
• The bottom of the frame should be the edge of your shoulders.
• The original, unedited photo: no filters or retouching, and not a photo or scan of a printed photo.

1. 1

   Take the photo with a phone

   Ask someone to take it from a few feet away, in front of a white wall in even daylight, framed from the top of your head to your shoulders. Glasses off.

2. 2

   Keep the original file

   Use the photo exactly as the camera saved it. HEIC from an iPhone is accepted, so you do not need to convert it.

3. 3

   Check the file size

   A normal phone photo is 1 to 5 MB, well inside the limit. Only if it is over 10 MB, reduce the file size with Compress Image set to 5000 KB; this lowers the file size without cropping, filters or any change to how you look.

4. 4

   Crop in the application

   Upload the photo in the renewal form and use its own crop tool to centre your head. If you prefer to crop first, Crop Image with the 1:1 preset keeps the full resolution.

Very small files usually come from messaging apps or screenshots, which compress photos heavily. Enlarging such a file does not add detail, so take a new photo and use the original from the camera instead.

• Glasses in the photo.
• Shadows on the face or on the wall behind.
• A filtered, beautified or retouched photo.
• A selfie taken at arm's length, which distorts the face and cuts off the shoulders.
• A photo of an old printed passport photo.