A DS-160 photo is a JPEG sized 600×600 to 1200×1200 pixels, square, at 240 KB or smaller, head at 50–69% of the photo's total height, eyes 56–69% up from the bottom of the photo, background: Plain white or off-white. That's the whole specification, transcribed from the State Department's own requirements page — read it, check it at the source, then let the maker hit the numbers for you.
WHAT WE HAND YOU: 600×600 JPEG · under 240 KB · pure white background
Make my photo → Free compliance check · download for $16.99at CVS; ours is $9.99 if it passes · refunded if the government rejects it
The specification
These are the numbers your photo is measured against, transcribed from Official DS-160 photo requirements (travel.state.gov) — verifiable at the source, which is linked under the table:
| Photo size | 600×600 to 1200×1200 pixels, square |
|---|---|
| File size | 240 KB or smaller |
| Format | JPEG |
| Head height | 50–69% of the photo's total height |
| Eye height | 56–69% up from the bottom of the photo |
| Background | Plain white or off-white |
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 CEAC says no
CEAC is the State Department site where you fill in the DS-160 nonimmigrant visa application and upload your photo, at ceac.state.gov.
When it appears. After the photo has passed the quality check, at the point where you confirm it and try to move on to the Review section.
What it means. The upload failed on the State Department’s side after your file was accepted. Applicants who hit this say the same photo went through later, unchanged. The Next button at the bottom stays greyed out, so you can neither continue nor skip the step.
What to do. Try again later the same day, or the next morning. Some applicants got through after clearing all cookies for ceac.state.gov and starting again; others after closing the form and re-opening it with their Application ID. Nothing you change in the image file affects this one.
When it appears. During the upload itself, on the photo step, sometimes the moment you click the upload button.
What it means. A fault in the photo upload service, not in your image file. A forum thread named after this exact message was opened in February 2014 and ran to 59 replies, so it has been around a long time.
What to do. Wait a few minutes and try again. Editing or replacing your photo will not help, because the message is not about your photo. Some applicants have noticed it over weekends and holidays and got through on a weekday, but that is their impression rather than a measured pattern.
When it appears. When you open the photo upload step. Applicants describe it as Service Unavailable or Error 503; underneath, the server is returning an HTTP 503.
What it means. The photo upload service is down. This is an outage, not a verdict on your photo or your application. Applicants reported it in March 2023, again in November 2023, and during a documented outage on 25 April 2025.
What to do. There is nothing to change on your side. Clearing cache, switching browsers and incognito were all tried during these outages and reported not to work. Check back every few hours — it has come back on its own before. Applicants report being unable to sign and submit until the photo step goes through.
When it appears. Any time you leave the DS-160 idle for 15 minutes — easy to do at the photo step, while you are off finding, cropping or re-saving an image file.
What it means. CEAC is about to end your session. The same page warns that the system times out after 20 minutes of inactivity and you lose all unsaved information.
What to do. Click OK to keep the session alive. Better, have the finished photo file saved on the same device before you reach the photo step, so you are never away from the form. Write down the Application ID from the top right before you start.
When it appears. When the form has sat idle past the 20 minute limit, often while you were away preparing a photo.
What it means. The session has ended. To get back in you are asked for the first five letters of your surname, your year of birth, and the answer to your security question.
What to do. Use your Application ID with those three details to recover the application. If you never noted the Application ID down, you cannot get back in and you start the form again. Note it before you go looking for a photo file.
When it appears. Not on the DS-160 photo step. It appears on CEAC document uploads at the immigrant visa (NVC) stage, and State published it in a December 2024 notice about intermittent CEAC upload problems.
What it means. CEAC’s filter rejected something inside the file you uploaded. State published this string itself, on a page scoped to system errors affecting immigrant visa applicants.
What to do. The re-save-as-PDF steps printed beside this message are scoped on that page to documents received directly from the Internal Revenue Service, so do not follow them for anything else. For other documents, use the NVC inquiry form that page points you to rather than letting a deadline pass.
When it appears. On CEAC document uploads, listed by State beside Invalid Image Detected in the same December 2024 incident notice for immigrant visa applicants. It is not a DS-160 photo step error.
What it means. A security layer blocked the request before it reached CEAC. It is a filtering block, not a judgement on the file you picked.
What to do. The same scoping applies: the PDF re-saving steps on that page are for documents that came directly from the Internal Revenue Service. For anything else, use the NVC inquiry form the page links to.
The DS-160 sets a floor and a ceiling on pixel size and demands a square. Most portals set only a minimum. A phone photo fails on both counts: it is 4:3, and far wider than 1200 pixels.
What to do. Crop to a square, then resize so both sides fall between 600 and 1200 pixels. 600x600 is the safest target, because it also makes the file size limit easy to meet.
240 kB is an unusually small cap. A photo straight off a phone is 2 to 5 MB, roughly twenty times too big for this step.
What to do. Resize to 600x600 first, then save as JPEG and check the file size. If it is still over 240 kB, lower the JPEG quality a step at a time until it fits.
iPhones save photos as HEIC by default, and the DS-160 accepts JPEG only. The photo can look perfect and still be refused on format alone.
What to do. Export or convert the photo to JPEG. On an iPhone you can set the camera to save in the Most Compatible format, or convert the existing file before uploading.
This spec names the colour space, which very few photo specs do. Greyscale files, and files saved in another colour profile, do not match what is asked for.
What to do. Save the photo in colour, as a standard 24-bit JPEG, converted to sRGB. Most photo editors offer sRGB in the export or Save As dialog.
A compression-ratio limit is close to unique to this corridor. It catches people who crush a large photo to force it under the 240 kB cap and end up with a visibly degraded file.
What to do. Get under 240 kB by reducing the pixel dimensions to 600x600 first, not by dropping the JPEG quality of a large image. The file is then small without being heavily compressed.
There are two separate bands here, head height and eye height, and a photo can satisfy one and fail the other. Most photo specifications give only a head-height rule.
What to do. Recrop so hair-top to chin fills between half and a little over two thirds of the frame, and your eye line sits a little above the middle. Moving the crop up or down shifts the eye position without changing head size.
US visa photos have not allowed glasses since 1 November 2016. A photo taken before that date, or one that was fine for another country, is no longer acceptable here.
What to do. Take the photo again without glasses. The only exception is where they cannot be removed for medical reasons, and that needs a signed medical statement.
The State Department says photos must not be digitally enhanced or altered to change your appearance in any way. Beauty and smoothing modes, which many phone cameras apply by default, fall under this.
What to do. Turn off beauty and smoothing modes and retake the photo. Cropping, rotating and resizing are fine; changing how your face looks is not.
The unacceptable list here names photos copied or scanned from driver’s licences and other official documents, plus snapshots, magazine photos, low quality vending machine or phone photos, and full-length shots.
What to do. Take a new photo for this application: head and shoulders, facing the camera, against a plain white or off-white background, taken within the last 6 months.
The check is mechanical — dimensions, file type, file size, head and eye position. Re-uploading the same file, or a nicer photo that breaks the same rule, gives you the same answer.
What to do. Work through the rules above one at a time. An applicant reports that when a photo fails, the screen gives you the choice to carry on without a picture, and you take a printed photo to your interview instead.
That tool’s own page says it does not check the quality of your image, that it is for cropping only when you apply or renew on a paper form, and that you should not use it if you are renewing online.
What to do. Crop with it if you like, then check the file yourself against the digital rules: square JPEG, 600x600 to 1200x1200 pixels, 240 kB or less, head and eyes inside the two bands.
The official applicant site says that if your photo does not meet the requirements you will have to submit a new one before your visa is processed, even if the application system accepted the digital upload.
What to do. Do not read a successful upload as approval. Check the photo against the composition rules yourself, and have a printed photo that meets the requirements with you at the interview.
It means the photo never uploaded, even though the form let you finish. The DS-160 FAQ treats the X as the signal that your application has no photo attached to it.
What to do. Take one printed photo that meets the requirements, along with your confirmation page, to the embassy or consulate where you apply. If the confirmation page does show your photo, no printed photo is needed.
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.
30 DAYS FROM PURCHASE · NO PROOF UPLOADS · EVERY MEASUREMENT CHECKED AGAINST THE PUBLISHED GOVERNMENT SPEC BEFORE YOU PAY
Questions
No. We're an independent service that makes and checks visa photos — not affiliated with the U.S. government or the State Department. Their own free photo requirements page is linked below if you'd rather do it yourself.
600 x 600 to 1200 x 1200 pixels, square, saved as a JPEG of 240 KB or smaller. The printed version for your interview is 2 x 2 inches.
Yes. It is a cropper, resizer and compressor in one: it crops your photo to the DS-160 head band, resizes it to 600 x 600 pixels, and compresses the JPEG under 240 KB.
The print size and head band are identical, both 2 x 2 inches with the head at 50 to 69%. The DS-160 adds a 240 KB file cap that the passport spec does not have.
50 to 69% of the total photo height, with your eyes 56 to 69% of the way up from the bottom edge.
Usually the file rather than the photo: dimensions outside the square window, a file over the 240 KB cap, or the wrong format. Those are refused before the composition is even assessed.
The file uploaded fine but the composition failed - head too large or small, eyes outside the band, or a background that is not clean. Resizing cannot fix this, because resizing does not move your head inside the band.
No. Eyeglasses are no longer allowed in new US visa photos except for documented medical reasons.
Plain white or off-white, with nothing visible behind you.
Taken within the last six months, and it must reflect your current appearance.
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.