White-background ID photo specs: passport, visa, résumé

ID photos are one of those small bureaucratic items that absorbs an absurd amount of time when you're traveling, applying for visas, or filling out paperwork in a foreign country. Photo booths charge $15 for six prints, photo shops in major cities take an hour, and one wrong spec and the whole submission gets bounced.

Here are the most-asked specs in one place, plus how to generate them from a phone selfie.

US passport and visa photos

Size: 2 × 2 inches (51 × 51 mm), square.
Pixel size for digital submission: 600 × 600 px at 300 DPI.
Background: plain white or off-white, no shadows.
Head size: 1 to 1⅜ inches (25–35 mm) from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head, taking up 50–69% of the photo height.
Expression: neutral or natural smile, both eyes open, mouth closed.
Recency: taken within the last 6 months.
Glasses: not permitted in US photos since 2016.
Head coverings: allowed only for religious reasons; full face must remain visible.

EU Schengen visa photos

Size: 35 × 45 mm.
Pixel size: ~413 × 531 px at 300 DPI.
Background: light gray or off-white (some countries require pure white).
Head size: 70–80% of photo height.
Expression: neutral, mouth closed.
Recency: within the last 6 months.

UK passport

Size: 35 × 45 mm printed, or 750–10,000 px wide digital.
Background: plain cream or light gray (not white in current spec — common mistake).
Expression: neutral, closed mouth, eyes open.

Japanese 履歴書 (résumé) photo

Size: 30 × 40 mm or 24 × 30 mm.
Background: plain white or light blue.
Style: business suit, dark color, white shirt. Tie expected for men. Hair neat, off the face.
Expression: neutral, slight smile acceptable.
Common spec: taken within 3 months, no glare on glasses if worn.

Korean ID / job application

Size: 35 × 45 mm.
Background: white.
Style: business formal. Both ears should be visible.

LinkedIn (for reference, not strictly an ID)

Recommended: 800 × 800 px to 1,600 × 1,600 px square.
Background: not pure white (gets lost in LinkedIn's chrome).
Style: professional but human; the rules above do not apply.

What goes wrong most often

Background isn't actually white. Phone photos against a "white" wall often pick up cream or yellow casts. Either use real diffuse light or have the tool replace the background.
Shadow on the face. Lighting from one side creates a hard shadow that disqualifies the photo. Use even, frontal light.
Head size out of range. Phones default to wide angles that put the head too small in the frame. Crop after.
Expression too smiley. Schengen and US visa photos are bounced for "exaggerated" expressions. The half-smile that works on LinkedIn does not work on a passport submission.

Generating compliant ID photos from a phone selfie

This is the use case for an AI tool with explicit ID-photo presets. You upload your phone selfies, choose the spec (US visa / white background / blue background), and the tool produces a compliant crop with the right background color, head ratio, and expression bias.

PitchPhoto ships with US Visa, white-background, blue- background, and LinkedIn presets. Pick the spec in step 2 of the generation flow and the cropping happens automatically — no Photoshop or background-removal stage required.