The actual rule: neutral expression or a natural smile
Yes — you can smile in a US passport photo. The official rule accepts two expressions, not one: a neutral face, or a natural smile. Either way, both eyes must be open and you must face the camera directly.
The word doing all the work is “natural.” Somewhere between the rulebook and the photo counter, “natural smile allowed” hardened into the folk rule “never smile” — which is stricter than anything actually written. What the rule bans is the exaggerated expression: the open-mouth laugh, the squint, the theatrics. A relaxed smile was never on the list.
What counts as a natural smile — and can teeth show?
A natural smile is the one your face produces without being asked — the smile you would give a colleague in a hallway, not the one you would hold for a camera on the count of three. Your eyes stay open, your eyebrows stay where they live, and the photo still looks like you on an ordinary day.
Teeth are fine. A natural smile showing some teeth is acceptable — the rule regulates the expression, not the mouth. The risk with a toothy smile is never the teeth themselves: push a smile wide enough and it starts to scrunch the eyes and pull your features out of their normal shape, and that distortion — not the smile — is what examiners reject.
So the line sits at “exaggerated.” On the wrong side of it:
- A wide, open-mouth laugh. Mid-laugh is exactly the exaggerated expression the rule is written against.
- Eyes squinted shut — or nearly shut — by the smile. Both eyes must be open, and a big enough grin closes them for you.
- Raised-eyebrow theatrics. Surprise faces and posed expressions fail the same way the laugh does.
- The test behind all three: anything that distorts your normal facial features. If the expression rearranges your face, it is out — smile or no smile.
Our advice — and it is advice, not the rule: a slight, closed-mouth natural smile is the zero-risk play. It reads as warm in the finished photo, and it physically cannot squint your eyes shut, which takes the only real smile risk off the table.
Do kids and babies have to keep a straight face?
No — children are held to the same rule as adults: neutral or a natural smile, both eyes open, facing the camera. There is no separate children’s standard. A toddler mid-grin passes exactly the way you do, and fails the same way too, when the grin squeezes the eyes shut.
Newborns are the one real exception, and it is narrow: they get some leniency on the eyes. The rest of photographing a baby is its own project, and it has its own guide:
Passport photo expression rules beyond the smile
A passing expression can still sit inside a failing photo. The face rules travel as a set, and the rest of it is short:
- Both eyes open, facing the camera directly. This applies whichever expression you choose — a natural smile caught mid-blink fails on the eyes, not the smile.
- Glasses off. Eyeglasses have been banned in US passport photos since November 1, 2016 — take them off for the picture, whatever the prescription.
- Taken within the last six months, showing how you look now. A flattering shot from two years ago fails on age alone, however good the expression.
Behind the face sits the geometry nobody can judge by eye — your head must take up 50–69% of the photo's height (1 to 1⅜ in / 25–35 mm), your eyes must sit 56–69% up from the bottom of the photo, the background rule reads: Plain white or off-white, and the file itself must be a JPEG sized 2×2 in (51×51 mm) · 600×600 to 1200×1200 pixels, square. And what you wear has its own short list:
What actually gets photos rejected on expression
Put the rule’s pieces together and the pattern is plain: examiners do not reject smiles — they reject what an oversized smile does to the rest of the face. Eyes scrunched to slits break the eyes-open rule. An open-mouth laugh is an exaggerated expression. Features pulled out of their everyday shape stop looking like you. Each one is a distortion problem that happens to be wearing a smile.
The catch: you cannot referee your own expression from a phone thumbnail, and a smile that felt slight in the moment often photographs bigger than it felt. So check the finished photo instead of guessing. These are the checks a US passport photo is measured against here:
- Exactly one face, looking straight ahead
- Head sized 50–69% of frame
- Eyes at the required height (56–69% from the bottom)
- No head tilt
- Background replaced with pure white
- Even, uniform background
- Sharp focus — no blur
- Natural exposure — not too dark or bright
Expression is the one check that stays yours. The eight above are measured on the finished file; the finished photo itself — full-size, background replaced with pure white, head cropped to spec — is where you confirm the smile with your own eyes: both open, features at rest. You see the photo and the full report free before paying anything, and if the smile photographed bigger than it felt, a retake costs a minute and every check runs again at no charge.
Already had a photo refused? Start from the other end — the rejection guide maps each refusal reason to its fix:
Upload a selfie — see it pass free
See your finished photo and its full check report free · download it for $16.99at CVS; ours is $9 · refunded if the government rejects it