Passport photo rules are easier to understand as pictures than as paragraphs — but no responsible site republishes real people’s biometric photos. So this page draws them instead: every figure below is an annotated diagram built to the proportions the authorities actually measure, marked PASS or FAIL the way an automated validator would see it.

The green figure is the target: centred, head inside the band, plain light background, shoulders at the bottom edge. The red figures are the everyday rejects.

Anatomy of the pass figure

The green diagram compresses four rules into one frame:

• Centre line. The nose sits on the vertical axis — passport crops are symmetric around the face, so a subject pushed left or right fails even when the size is right.
• The head band. Crown-to-chin must land between the dashed lines — for the US 2×2 in photo that is 25–35 mm, i.e. about 50–69% of the frame height. This is the measurement home photos get wrong most often, and it is why validators (and our checker) flag it first.
• Plain background. Uniform light grey or off-white, no shadow, no texture — the wall in the diagram is the boring kind that passes.
• Shoulders at the bottom edge. The frame cuts at the upper chest, roughly where the shoulders meet the arms. Passport photos are not headshots — cropping at the neck is a fail.

What each failure gets wrong

Head too small / too big. The band is a window, not a target: standing back so the head fills only ~28% of the frame fails just as surely as leaning in until it fills ~75%. Fix distance, not the crop — a photo shot too far away rarely has the pixels to be enlarged into the band.

Tilted head. Rotating the photo back doesn’t work — the eyes must be level at capture. Face-matching reads eye-to-eye tilt; ~15° is an automatic flag.

Glasses. In the US they are banned outright since November 2016 (medical exceptions need a signed statement). The UK and Schengen nominally allow them, but glare, tinted lenses and frames crossing the eyes cause rejections daily — removal is the reliable route.

Shadow and background. These two are the same rule — the wall must be flat and plain. Standing half a metre from the wall with frontal daylight kills the shadow; hanging a white sheet kills the texture.

Expression. Neutral, mouth closed. A teeth-showing smile fails the biometric pose rule almost everywhere; a faint closed-mouth smile is the most that survives, and only in some countries.

Off-centre crop. A common self-inflicted failure when hand-cropping a bigger photo — the face must sit on the centre axis of the final crop, not of the original.

Same face, four different specs

The frames below are drawn to relative scale — this is why “one compliant photo” is a myth. The head band differs by country, so the correct crop differs too.

Notice the trade-off hiding in the drawing: Schengen wants the largest head (71–80%), the US the smallest band, and China a taller frame overall. A crop made for Schengen overshoots the US band; a US square cannot be stretched into a 35×45 mm portrait. For the exact numbers per document — pixel windows, file sizes and upload channels included — use the requirements table or the per-country spec sheets at visaspecs.passports.pics.

What a diagram cannot show

Drawings can only illustrate the geometric rules. The rules below are just as rejection-worthy but invisible in a diagram:

• Recency — the photo must be less than six months old (one month for UK online applications) and look like you today.
• Retouching — filters, skin smoothing and AI touch-ups are all rejectable; the file must be the original.
• Print quality — for paper submissions, creases, inkjet banding and off-size cutting fail at the counter.
• Eyes in shadow / hair over eyes — a diagram can’t reproduce lighting across a face.

The rejection reasons page covers all ten failure categories in words, and the at-home shooting guide is the setup that avoids most of them. When you have a candidate photo, run it through the checker — it measures the same bands drawn here.

Official example galleries

For photographs rather than diagrams, the authorities publish their own:

• United States: the State Department’s photo requirements page includes example photos and a composition template.
• United Kingdom: GOV.UK photos for passports shows acceptable and unacceptable examples.
• China: the CVASC photo specification ends with a model photo.
• Schengen: the harmonized format follows ICAO Doc 9303 portrait guidance; your consulate’s checklist shows the enforced crop.

Ready to make one? PassportPhoto crops a photo to any of these specs in your browser, PrintSheet tiles it onto a 4×6 print sheet, and the checker tells you where the result stands before you submit.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I see real passport photo examples?

On the issuing authorities' own pages: the U.S. State Department publishes a photo gallery of acceptable and unacceptable examples, GOV.UK shows sample photos, and China's CVASC spec sheet includes a model photo. This page uses annotated diagrams instead — republishing real biometric photos raises privacy and copyright problems, and a labelled drawing shows the measured band better than an unmarked photo does.

What does a compliant passport photo look like?

Plain white or off-white background with no shadows, head centred and square to the camera, crown-to-chin height inside the country's band (50–69% of frame for the US, roughly 64–76% for the UK, 71–80% for Schengen, 58–69% for China's 33×48 mm), neutral expression with mouth closed, both eyes open, no glasses for the US, and the bottom of the frame at the shoulders.

Is a slightly tilted head really a rejection?

Yes. Face-matching systems measure eye-to-eye level and nose alignment; a tilt of even 10–15 degrees fails automated checks, and a rotated head cannot be 'cropped back' into compliance — the photo has to be retaken.

Can I reuse one compliant photo for every country?

Not safely. The same face needs a different crop per spec: the US frame is square (2×2 in), UK and Schengen are 35×45 mm portrait with different head bands, and China paper is 33×48 mm while its upload window is 3:4 pixels. A head sized for Schengen will usually overshoot the US band. Crop a separate file for each document.

Are these example diagrams drawn to scale?

They are proportional approximations — the head bands are drawn at their real percentages so the comparisons are honest, but a diagram can't show skin texture, print quality or recency. For the exact millimetre figures see the requirements table, and for real published examples use the official sources linked below.

My photo looks like one of the failures — can it be fixed?

Framing problems (head too big, too small, off-centre) are usually fixable by re-cropping the same shot if the original is sharp and well-lit. Tilted heads, visible shadows, glasses glare and busy backgrounds mean a reshoot — the at-home guide walks through the setup that avoids them.