🇺🇸 United States Passport Photo Requirements

What you can and cannot wear

Everyday clothing is what the State Department expects. There is no dress code beyond a few specific prohibitions, and no requirement to dress formally — the photo records what you look like, not how well you scrub up.

Uniforms are not allowed, and neither is anything resembling one. That includes military and camouflage clothing even when worn casually. Scrubs and workwear that read as a uniform are best avoided for the same reason.

The practical trap is color rather than style. The background must be white or off-white, so a white shirt tends to merge into it and leave your face floating in an undefined block. Mid-tone colors separate cleanly and are the safest choice. Black can look heavy against white but is not against the rules.

Jewellery and everyday piercings are fine as long as nothing obscures your face. Large earrings that cast shadows across the cheek cause more trouble than the jewellery rule itself does.

Makeup is permitted with no restrictions. What causes problems is shine — heavily reflective foundation or highlighter can read as glare under direct light.

Hair, ears and facial hair

Your hair may be worn however you normally wear it. It must not fall across your eyes, and it must not obscure the outline of your face. Nothing in the rules requires your ears to be visible, despite a persistent myth to the contrary.

One measurement catches people out: head height runs from the bottom of the chin to the top of your hair, not the top of your skull. Voluminous or piled-up hair therefore pushes you toward the upper limit of the 1 to 1⅜ inch band, and can push you past it.

Beards, moustaches and any facial hair you normally wear are entirely acceptable. The photo simply needs to look like you as you usually appear.

Glasses, head coverings and medical exceptions

Glasses have not been permitted since November 2016. This was a genuine rule change, not a tightening of enforcement, and it catches people who last renewed before then. The only exception is medical necessity, which requires a signed statement from a doctor.

Head coverings are allowed for religious or medical reasons and for no other reason. You need a signed statement explaining why it is worn, and the covering must not cast a shadow on your face or obscure any part of it — your full face must remain visible from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead.

Hats and fashion headwear are refused without exception.

Who should take the photo

The official checklist asks whether someone else took your photo and states plainly: no selfies. The concern is lens distortion. A phone held at arm's length sits roughly 40 to 50 centimetres from your face, which visibly enlarges the nose and narrows the ears — a distortion no amount of cropping can undo.

In practice the requirement is judged on how the finished photo looks rather than who pressed the button. The reliable way to satisfy it is to have someone else take the photo from about six feet away, or to prop the phone up and use the timer at the same distance. Either approach removes the distortion the rule exists to prevent.

Whatever you do, use the rear camera. Front-facing cameras are lower resolution on most phones and many mirror the image by default.

How recent the photo must be

Your photo must have been taken within the last six months, and it must reflect your current appearance. If you have significantly changed how you look — a very different hairstyle, substantial weight change, new facial hair — a photo from within the window can still be refused for not representing you.

Reusing the photo from a previous passport is not permitted, even if it is flattering and even if you look identical.

How long a passport photo stays valid

The photo must have been taken within the last six months, and it must reflect how you look now. Those are two separate tests: a photo from four months ago can still be refused if you have changed significantly since — a very different hairstyle, substantial weight change, or new facial hair that alters the shape of your face.

Reusing the photo from your previous passport is not permitted under any circumstances, even if you look identical and the print is pristine. The six-month rule exists because biometric matching degrades as a face ages, and the system assumes the photo is recent.

There is no grace period and no way to argue the point. If your photo is older than six months, take another — which costs nothing here.

What happens after you submit

Your photo is not checked when you submit it. It is checked when a person processes your application, which is typically several weeks later, and that delay is what makes a rejected photo expensive.

If it fails, your application is suspended rather than refused outright. You receive a letter asking for a replacement photo, you send one, and the clock restarts from that point. Routine processing times mean this commonly adds a month or more, and expedited service does not protect you from it.

For online renewals the feedback is faster but shallower: the portal runs automated checks on dimensions and file format at upload, so it catches a photo that is the wrong shape, but a compliant-looking photo with the head slightly out of band passes upload and fails later at the same human step.

Printing and submitting

For a paper application you submit one printed photo, 2 × 2 inches, on matte or glossy photo-quality paper. Ordinary office paper is refused — the surface and weight are both part of what makes a photo acceptable.

For online renewal you upload a digital file instead. It must be square, at least 600 × 600 pixels and no more than 1200 × 1200 pixels, in color, and unedited beyond cropping and brightness. Filters, beauty modes and background replacement done badly are all grounds for refusal.

Do not staple, paperclip or write on a printed photo. Damage to the surface, including a ballpoint indentation from writing on the back, is a common and entirely avoidable rejection.