A UK passport photo is 35 × 45 mm (about 827 × 1063 pixels at 600 dpi), head at 64–76% of the photo's height (29–34 mm, crown to chin), background: Printed: plain cream or light grey. Digital upload: any plain light colour, including white.. That's the whole specification, transcribed from the official GOV.UK photo rules — and the background is the rule most people get wrong, because GOV.UK sets a different one for a printed photo than for the digital photo you upload online. Read it, check it at the source, then let the maker hit the numbers for you.
WHAT WE HAND YOU: 35×45 mm JPEG at 600 dpi · plain light-grey background
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The specification
These are the numbers your photo is measured against, transcribed from Official UK passport photo rules (gov.uk) — verifiable at the source, which is linked under the table:
| Photo size | 35 × 45 mm (about 827 × 1063 pixels at 600 dpi)† (derived from official print specification) |
|---|---|
| File size | 50 KB – 10 MB |
| Format | JPEG† (derived from official print specification) |
| Head height | 64–76% of the photo's height (29–34 mm, crown to chin) |
| Eye height | 50–68% up from the bottom of the photo† (derived from official print specification) |
| Background | Printed: plain cream or light grey. Digital upload: any plain light colour, including white. |
† Derived from the official print specification — the source publishes no digital value for this item.
Already have a photo? Check it against the spec — free
Applying as a family? Check the whole family's photos at once — the official requirements linked below ask for a photo of each applicant.
Who does what
Everything on the left is measurement and file work, which is what the maker is for. Everything on the right happens before the photo exists.
Make my photo →When Apply for a passport (GOV.UK) says no
HM Passport Office’s online application. Your photo is checked automatically inside the application, before you submit it.
When it appears. On the photo check result, under Background and lighting.
What it means. The check could not find a clear edge between you and the wall behind you. It usually fires when your hair, skin tone or top is close in brightness to a cream, white or light grey wall. It does not mean your background is the wrong colour.
What to do. Add contrast instead of changing the wall. Wear a top clearly darker than the background, stand about half a metre forward of it, and light your face from the front. If your hair is loose and light, brush it down so the outline is defined.
When it appears. On the photo check result, as a reason behind a poor or okay rating.
What it means. The check found bright patches it reads as glare. Most often that is light bouncing off glasses lenses, but a flash or a lamp close to the camera can do it off skin, and so can metal piercings.
What to do. Turn the flash off and face a window instead. If you can take your glasses off, do. If you have to wear them, move the light source to one side so the lens does not mirror it. HMPO tells examiners to reject glare that covers the eye.
When it appears. On the photo check result, after you upload a photo or enter a photo code.
What it means. The check could not trace where your head ends and the background begins, so it cannot crop the photo. It is often the same underlying problem as the contrast message, or the top of your head sits too close to the frame edge.
What to do. Leave clear space above your head and to each side, and include your shoulders and upper body. Do not crop the photo yourself — the service crops it for you. Avoid background-removal apps: they soften the hair edge, which is what the check reads.
When it appears. On the photo check result, under Face and expression.
What it means. The check thinks your lips are parted. It is the best-documented false alarm on this service. The Home Office’s own wording says shadow or facial hair near your mouth can cause it.
What to do. Retake with even light on the lower half of your face and your lips resting together. If your mouth was closed, you can submit the photo anyway and type your reason in the box. An examiner reads that note and can still ask for a new photo.
When it appears. On the photo check result, under Face and expression.
What it means. The check could not find both eyes open. Hair across an eye, deep shadow in the eye sockets, glasses frames sitting on the eyelid, or squinting into a light can all trigger it.
What to do. Move your hair fully clear of both eyes, turn the flash off, and use light coming from in front of you rather than above. If your eyes were open, you can submit the photo and say so in the explanation box.
When it appears. On the photo check result, under Face and expression.
What it means. Your head reads as tilted or turned. The Home Office’s own wording says a tilt is enough to trigger it. It can also fire when the camera sat above or below your eye level, so your face is angled up or down.
What to do. Put the camera at your own eye height and keep your head straight and square to the lens, rather than turned toward one shoulder. Look at the lens itself, not at the screen. A head tilted back, forward or sideways is a stated reject.
When it appears. On the photo check result, under Background and lighting.
What it means. One side of your face is much brighter than the other, or the whole frame is underexposed. Overhead room lights, a window off to one side, or a dim room are the usual causes.
What to do. Face a window in daylight so the light reaches you head-on, switch the flash off, and stand well forward of the wall so you are not casting a shadow onto it. The service gives you the same three steps.
When it appears. After upload, on a page headed You need another photo, instead of a result screen.
What it means. The service could not produce a passport-shaped crop from your file. Unlike the graded results, there is no option to carry on with this photo. You have to supply a different one.
What to do. Upload the full, uncropped shot with head, shoulders and upper body and clear space around your head. If your file has a white, grey or black bar along an edge, export it again without the bar.
When it appears. After you enter a photo code from a booth or shop.
What it means. The code did not resolve. It is a shortened web address, not a reference number, so one wrong character breaks it. Capital and lower-case letters are different.
What to do. Check the code against your receipt character by character, and enter it exactly as it is written. If it keeps failing, contact the booth or shop that gave you the photo — they host the image the code points at.
When it appears. On the photo check result, next to a rating of Poor.
What it means. This service grades rather than passes or fails. Your photo is rated Good, Okay or Poor across Background and lighting, Face and expression, and Quality and format. The reasons sit behind a What’s affecting this result? link.
What to do. Open that link and fix the reason it names, rather than retaking blind. You can still submit a photo you believe is right, with a written explanation, but an examiner can reject it afterwards, so it is a judgement call.
This defect shows on digital photos only, on the outside edge. HMPO used to accept a white bar across the bottom of a child’s photo; from 8 December 2025 it accepts none, and examiners now log each case.
What to do. Check the edges of the file before you upload. If an app or booth padded the image to a fixed shape, export it again without the padding, or take a fresh photo. No explanation gets this one through.
HMPO crops the photo for you. GOV.UK asks for head, shoulders and upper body and tells you not to crop. A file already trimmed to 35x45mm leaves the automatic crop nothing to work with.
What to do. Upload the full frame, with clear space around your head and shoulders. If you used a shop or a tool set up for US or Schengen photos, do not upload its cropped output here.
GOV.UK asks for a plain light-coloured background and, separately, for you to be in clear contrast to it. Those are two rules, and a correct background can still fail the second one.
What to do. Keep the light wall. Wear something clearly darker than it, stand about half a metre forward, and light your face from the front. A white shirt against a white wall is the classic failure.
HMPO publishes an exact band for the automatic check: it has problems finding eye positions unless your eyes sit in the top 40% to 70% of the photo. Most other countries specify head height instead.
What to do. Frame head, shoulders and upper body with the camera at your own eye level. Do not shoot from above or below, and do not let your face fill the frame.
HMPO requires a photo from the last month and tells examiners to reject on suspicion, for example a date stamp, or the same photo appearing in a passport you have already sent in.
What to do. Take a fresh photo for this application. Do not reuse spare prints or the file from your last renewal, and turn off any date stamp your camera adds.
HMPO names this as a reject in its examiner rules, while stating that visible hearing aids are fine. It is easy to miss when you take the photo at home on your phone.
What to do. Take earbuds out and check both ears in the photo before you upload. Leave hearing aids in — they are accepted.
HMPO draws the line by reason, not by garment. Religious and medical coverings can be accepted if your face is visible; cultural ones are named as not accepted, with a Fez, keffiyeh, headdress and cowboy hat as examples.
What to do. Remove a head covering you are not wearing for religious or medical reasons. If yours is religious or medical, keep it on, keep your full face visible, and use the explanation box to say why.
The examiner rules are specific: altering your hairline, removing blemishes or resizing features is a reject, as are filters that add texture or make you look younger or older. Brightness and contrast are accepted.
What to do. Turn off beauty and smoothing modes before you shoot. Adjusting brightness or contrast is allowed, and so is editing the background to remove a shadow or a mark. Leave your face alone.
You may support a baby’s head, but your hand must not be visible. A visible hand or arm is on the short list of reasons an examiner pulls a photo that already passed the automated check.
What to do. Lay a baby under one year old on a plain light-coloured sheet and shoot from directly above, so none of you is in frame. No toys, and no dummy.
HMPO rejects mirror images because of the trouble they cause at border control. Examiners are told to phone you first and ask you to confirm the photo is a true likeness of you.
What to do. Some phone front cameras save the image flipped. Check which side a parting, scar or mole sits on against a real mirror, and un-mirror the file before you upload it.
The check is advisory, so overriding it is allowed and is sometimes the right call. But your override creates a photo standards task, and the rules tell the examiner to reject the photo if it does not meet the standards.
What to do. Use the explanation box for a specific reason the check was wrong, or a medical or religious reason. If the photo is genuinely outside the rules, overriding only delays you, so take a new one.
Rejected by the portal? We refund you.
Email us with your order id and the full amount goes back to your card. No screenshots, no proof — just tell us it was rejected.
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Questions
No. We're an independent service that makes and checks passport photos — not affiliated with HM Passport Office or GOV.UK. The official GOV.UK photo rules are linked below if you'd rather do it yourself.
Because grey is the one colour that satisfies both sets of GOV.UK rules at once. For printed photos GOV.UK says the photo must "be taken against a plain cream or light grey background". For digital photos it says only "a plain light-coloured background" — so on the online route a white background is perfectly acceptable. We render light grey so the same file works either way.
Use it for the printed/postal route — a sheet of eight to print is an optional add-on at checkout. For the fully online route, read this first: GOV.UK requires the digital photo to be "unaltered by computer software" and says "do not crop your photo — it will be done for you". Our photo is cropped and its background is replaced, so we do not claim it for that route. If you are applying online, take the photo on your device during the application and use ours as your reference for framing, background and expression.
45 mm high by 35 mm wide. GOV.UK describes it as the standard size used in UK photo booths.
29 to 34 mm from crown to chin, which works out to 64 to 76% of the photo height.
At least 600 pixels wide by 750 pixels tall, in a file between 50 KB and 10 MB.
Taken within the last month. This is the strictest recency rule of any country covered on this site, and it rules out reusing most photos you already have.
The 35 x 45 mm digital file, and a print-ready sheet of eight for the postal application route as an optional add-on at checkout.
Yes for the digital upload: GOV.UK asks there only for a plain light-coloured background. Printed photos need plain cream or light grey, which is what we render.
Both use the 35 x 45 mm frame, but the head bands differ (UK 64-76%, Schengen 70-80%), so a single photo cannot serve both.
Almost certainly not. The one-month recency rule means anything from a previous application or an old ID is already out of date.
You won't be charged. We show you exactly which check failed and how to fix it — move closer, find better light, use a plainer background — so you can retake and try again for free.
We refund you. Email info@readyvisaphoto.com with your order id (it is in your receipt, and on the page your refund link opens) and tell us it was rejected — the full amount goes back to your original card. No screenshots, no forms, no proof. Covers 30 days from purchase.
It’s used only to run the checks, downloadable by you for 30 days, then deleted automatically. No account, no photo library, no reuse.
Your download link stays active for 30 days after purchase.
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