What to Wear for a Passport Photo

The white shirt problem

This is the single most useful thing on this page, and nobody at a photo counter will mention it. The background of a US passport photo must be white or off-white. Wear a white top and your shoulders dissolve into it, leaving a head floating in an undefined field.

It is not a rule violation and it will not automatically be refused. But a reviewer looking at an ambiguous outline looks harder at everything else, and the photo is objectively worse to carry for a decade. Cream, pale gray and very light pastels have the same problem to a lesser degree.

Mid-tone colors solve it completely: navy, mid-blue, olive, burgundy, mid-gray, forest green. Black is permitted and separates perfectly well, though it can read a little severe against a white field.

What is actually prohibited

Uniforms, and anything that resembles one. This includes military dress, camouflage patterns worn casually, and clothing that might read as an official uniform. The rule exists so the photo cannot be mistaken for official identification of a different kind.

Hats and fashion headwear are refused. Head coverings worn daily for religious or medical reasons are permitted, but they need a signed statement with the application and must not shadow the face or obscure the hairline.

That is the entire list of prohibitions. Everything else — collars, no collars, patterns, jumpers, t-shirts, jewellery — is a matter of taste rather than compliance.

Jewellery, makeup and glasses

Jewellery and everyday piercings are fine as long as nothing obscures your face. The practical risk is large earrings casting shadows on the cheek under a strong light, which reads as a shadow problem rather than a jewellery problem.

Makeup is unrestricted. The only thing to watch is shine — heavily reflective foundation or highlighter can read as glare under direct light, particularly on the forehead and nose.

Glasses are the exception to the relaxed attitude: not permitted in US passport photos since November 2016, with a narrow medical exception requiring a doctor's statement. Take them off several minutes beforehand so the frame marks on your nose have faded.

Photographing a baby or child

The same color logic applies, and matters more. Infants are usually photographed lying on a white sheet, so a white babygrow disappears entirely into the background. A plain mid-tone outfit gives a defined outline.

Avoid anything with a hood, a large collar that bunches around the chin, or a pattern busy enough to distract. Nothing may be in the frame, so no comforters, no toys and no dummy — a plain top and nothing else.