How to take a passport photo

What you need before you start

You do not need any special equipment. A modern smartphone camera is more than adequate. HMPO requires a digital photo that is at least 600 pixels wide by 750 pixels tall, and any phone made in the last five years will comfortably exceed that. What you need is the right conditions, because that is where home photos go wrong.

The right wall

Find a plain, light-coloured wall with nothing on it. Light grey or cream is what HMPO specifies. Not white. This confuses people because white seems cleaner and more neutral, but the automated checker uses edge detection to identify the outline of your face and shoulders, and a bright white background against pale skin provides very little contrast for that process. A light grey or cream wall gives a distinct, clean edge.

The wall needs to be genuinely plain. No texture, no pattern, no wallpaper, nothing hanging on it. If the only available wall has texture, hang a plain light-coloured sheet over it. What matters is what appears in the final photo, not what is behind the sheet.

The right lighting

A window is what you want. Stand facing it so the natural light comes from in front of you rather than from the side or above. This is the one lighting setup that consistently illuminates both sides of your face evenly without creating shadows. Overhead lighting from a ceiling bulb throws shadows under your nose, chin, and brow that the checker picks up. Lamps to the side create one-sided lighting that does the same. Natural light from directly in front does neither.

Do not use the phone's flash. It creates harsh, flat lighting, can cause glare, and often produces a background shadow. If natural light is not available, put two lamps either side of you at face height, equidistant, to approximate even frontal lighting.

A stable phone

Prop the phone against something solid rather than holding it. This removes camera shake (which causes blur, which causes rejection) and, more importantly, lets you step back to get the framing right. Selfies taken at arm's length are the biggest single cause of passport photo rejections at home because the arm's-length distance compresses perspective and leaves your head too small in the frame. The phone on a shelf, leant against a mug, or on a small tripod all work.

If there is someone with you, having them take the photo is better than a self-timer. GOV.UK's own guidance recommends it. Another person can adjust the phone until your head, shoulders, and upper body are correctly positioned before taking the shot, which is much harder to judge from a self-timer preview.

Camera settings: the part most guides do not cover

This is the section that makes the difference between a photo that looks fine and one that actually passes HMPO's automated checker. Modern smartphone cameras do a lot of processing automatically. Most of it is useful for normal photography. For passport photos, some of it causes problems.

Turn off portrait mode

Portrait mode uses the phone's depth sensor to separate you from the background and apply a blur effect. The checker needs to detect a clean edge between your face and the background. Portrait mode produces a digitally processed separation that looks fine to the naked eye but can cause the automated system to read the background incorrectly. Turn it off and use standard photo mode.

Turn off beauty mode and skin smoothing

Many Android phones have skin-smoothing or beauty filters enabled by default. Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi devices are particularly prone to this. These filters smooth skin texture and alter the appearance of facial features, sometimes subtly enough that you would not notice unless you look closely. HMPO's biometric checker measures facial geometry, and a photo that has been processed to smooth or alter features can fail that check. Go into your camera settings and switch these off before you shoot.

Turn off HDR

HDR (High Dynamic Range) takes multiple shots at different exposures and composites them. For a passport photo it can subtly alter the colour and exposure of the background, making what should be a plain light grey wall look uneven. Switch to standard mode.

Use the rear camera

The front-facing camera on most phones is lower resolution than the rear camera and is typically a wide-angle lens, which distorts facial proportions. Use the rear camera with the phone propped up. This is why having someone else take the photo works well practically: they can use the rear camera and see the frame at the same time.

No digital zoom

Digital zoom degrades image quality. If the frame is not right, move the phone further away or step back rather than zooming. Optical zoom on phones that have it is fine.

No filters

This includes filters marketed as natural or subtle. HMPO needs an unedited image that represents your actual appearance. Even a very mild filter alters colour balance. Take the photo in the standard camera app with all processing switched off.

Check your phone's camera settings before you take the photo, not after. Beauty mode and skin smoothing are often on by default and invisible in the final image. You will not know they were active unless you check.

Taking the photo: step by step

Step 1: Set up the background

Stand roughly 50 centimetres from the wall. That is about one arm's length. GOV.UK specifies this distance precisely because it is the point at which you stop casting a noticeable shadow on the wall behind you. Closer than that and a shadow appears and the checker will flag it. If you are unsure, err on the side of further away rather than closer.

Step 2: Position the phone

Prop the phone at roughly eye level. Not below it (which creates an upward angle that foreshortens the face) and not above it (which creates a downward angle that alters the chin-to-crown measurement). The camera should be about 1.5 metres away from you, per GOV.UK guidance. At this distance, with the camera at eye level, your head, shoulders, and upper body will fill the frame correctly.

Do not crop the photo before uploading. The GOV.UK system crops it to the required dimensions automatically. If you crop it yourself, you risk cutting out information the system needs to process the image correctly.

Step 3: Check the lighting

Take a test shot and look at it. Is both sides of your face evenly lit? Is there a shadow under your nose or chin? Is there a shadow on the wall behind you? If yes to any of these, adjust. Move closer to the window for more frontal light. Move further from the wall to eliminate the background shadow. The face shadow under the nose often disappears when you face the light source more directly.

Step 4: Expression and head position

Face directly forward, chin level, not tilted to either side, not angled. The expression needs to be genuinely neutral: mouth closed, eyes open and looking at the lens, no smile, no frown, no raised eyebrows. The expression most people think is neutral is often very slightly tense, which produces subtle micro-expressions. The one to aim for is the expression you have when you have just listened to a question and are about to answer. Attentive but relaxed, with nothing happening in the face.

Do not force your eyes wide open. It looks unnatural and the checker picks it up. Natural open eyes, looking at the lens without staring.

Keep your hair away from your face and eyes. A fringe across the forehead reduces the area of face the biometric system can measure. If yours normally sits that way, pin it back for the photo.

Step 5: Take several shots

Do not settle for the first one. Take ten. Review them on a larger screen if possible because phone screens make photos look better than they are. Look specifically for shadow on the background, shadow on the face, any blur or softness, expression that has drifted from neutral, and hair in front of the face. Delete the ones with obvious problems and pick the best of what is left.

Step 6: Check it before you upload

Run the photo through a compliance checker before starting your GOV.UK passport application. The automated checker on GOV.UK runs when you upload the photo mid-application. If it fails there, you lose your progress and have to restart. Catching problems before you begin the application saves that wasted time.

Free compliance check: passport-photo.app/tools/passport-photo-checker

The measurements that matter

Most people know passport photos are 35 by 45mm. Fewer know about the head size requirement, which is the one that actually catches home photos out.

Your head, measured from the bottom of your chin to the crown of your head, must be between 29mm and 34mm in the final printed photo. That works out to roughly 70 to 80 per cent of the photo height. In digital terms, if the photo is 750 pixels tall, your head needs to be between 525 and 600 pixels.

This is why arm's-length selfies fail so consistently. At arm's length, your head occupies maybe 50 to 60 per cent of the frame at best. The checker measures the head size, finds it below the 29mm equivalent, and flags it. No amount of cropping after the fact fixes this. You need to take the photo from far enough away, with the camera correctly positioned, so that the head fills the right proportion of the frame.

For digital submissions via GOV.UK, the file needs to be at least 600 pixels wide by 750 pixels tall, in JPEG format, and between 50KB and 10MB. The GOV.UK application will crop the image to the correct proportions. You do not need to resize or crop it yourself.

Full requirements: UK passport photo requirements

How to take a baby or child's passport photo at home

Baby passport photos are the one situation where the standard approach does not apply, and where a bit of specific knowledge makes the difference between ten failed attempts and one decent shot.

Babies under one year old

Lay the baby on a plain light-coloured sheet. Not patterned, not white. The same background rules apply here as for adults: light grey or cream, no texture, no shadows. Photograph from directly above, looking straight down. This is the method HMPO specifies and it works because it gives you a naturally centred face-on shot without needing the baby to sit up or hold a position.

For babies under one, the eyes do not need to be open. The mouth can be open. The expression does not need to be neutral. The baby does not need to look at the camera. Those rules are all relaxed for under-ones, but the background, framing, and no-other-person rules still apply.

Keep hands out of the photo. If you need to support the baby's head, do it from below with a rolled towel or blanket tucked around them rather than with a visible hand. The rules say a supporting hand is allowed for the head but must not appear in the photo. Getting a hand entirely out of frame is easier than keeping it just out of shot, so the rolled-blanket method is more reliable.

Timing matters more than technique with babies. The best shots come when the baby is alert and calm, after a feed rather than before one. A slightly sleepy but content baby lying on a sheet tends to give you a face-on position naturally.

Children under six

Children under six do not need to look directly at the camera and do not need to hold a neutral expression. Those rules are relaxed for this age group. Everything else, including background, framing, lighting, and no other person in shot, applies exactly as it does for adults.

A good approach for toddlers is to have them sit in front of a plain wall, attract their attention with something behind the camera (a sound, a toy, a familiar voice), and take several shots in quick succession. You only need one. The ones where they are looking vaguely towards the camera, even with a slight expression, will pass.

Children six and over

The same rules as adults apply. Neutral expression, looking directly at the camera, plain background. Children this age can follow simple instructions. Tell them to look at the camera, keep their mouth closed, and not smile. Take a few shots and pick the best.

Related: baby passport photo guide

The six reasons home passport photos get rejected

These are not the official rejection categories. They are the actual failure patterns that come up repeatedly. Each one has a specific cause and a specific fix.

1. Head too small

The most common failure. Caused by taking the photo at arm's length, which makes the head too small in the frame. Your chin-to-crown height needs to be 70 to 80 per cent of the photo height. Prop the phone up, step back, and check the framing before you commit to a shot.

2. Shadow on the background

Caused by standing too close to the wall. Your body blocks light from reaching the wall at the edges and creates a shadow behind your head. Stand at least 50cm from the wall. GOV.UK specifies this distance and it is correct. Move further away if a shadow is still visible in the test shot.

3. Shadow on the face

Two types: a shadow under the nose and chin from overhead lighting, and a one-sided shadow from a lamp to one side. Face a window. Natural frontal light from a window eliminates both types. If you are relying on artificial light, put one lamp on each side at face height.

4. Phone camera processing

Portrait mode, beauty mode, HDR, and skin smoothing can all be on by default. They alter either the background or your facial appearance in ways that cause the automated checker to fail the image. Check your camera settings and switch all of these off before you take the photo.

5. Expression not neutral

A very slight smile shifts the corners of the mouth up, lifts the cheeks fractionally, and narrows the eyes. The kind that looks completely natural to you and everyone who sees the photo. The biometric checker measures facial geometry and picks this up. The expression to aim for is attentive and blank: not strained, just genuinely relaxed with nothing happening in the face.

6. Photo more than a month old

The UK recency rule is one of the strictest in the world. One month, not the six months that applies in the US and most of Europe. Reaffirmed in HMPO Photo Standards v47, September 2025. Do not reuse a photo from a previous application or from a shoot more than a few weeks ago. Take a new one close to your application date.

What to do once you have a photo you are happy with

Do not start your GOV.UK application until the photo has been checked. The reason is practical. If the automated checker on GOV.UK rejects your photo mid-application, you lose your progress and have to start again from the beginning. Running a compliance check first takes a couple of minutes and avoids that entirely.

For online applications, you will be asked to either upload a digital file directly or enter an IDPC code, which is a digital photo code from a verified provider. If you upload your own file, GOV.UK processes it through the automated checker. If you use a verified service, the photo has already been checked and the code links it to your application automatically.

For paper applications using form LS01, you need two identical printed photos, 35 by 45mm, on photo-quality paper. If you have taken and verified a digital photo at home, you can get it printed at any supermarket photo kiosk or at Boots for under £1 on a 6x4 sheet. Cut the photos out yourself. It is significantly cheaper than a booth.

If you have already had a passport photo rejected, do not just fix the specific thing HMPO flagged and resubmit. Fix it, then recheck the photo against all requirements before uploading. A photo rejected for one problem often has a second problem that was not flagged because the first one triggered the rejection first.

Check your photo: free compliance checker  |  Get a verified photo