Indian passport photo size
The printed photo is 2 x 2 inches — 51 x 51 mm — on a plain white background. The photo you upload to the Passport Seva portal is 630 x 810 pixels, which is a rectangle, taller than it is wide.
Those are two different shapes, and that is the whole problem. Every US drugstore counter hands you a square 2 x 2 print. Resizing that square into the 630 x 810 rectangle stretches the face, and the portal rejects it. Crop the original to 630 x 810 instead.
Every size, in one table
| Where it goes | Size | Shape | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| Printed, attached to the form | 2 x 2 inches (51 x 51 mm) | Square | Plain white background |
| Uploaded to Passport Seva | 630 x 810 pixels | Rectangle | Face about 80–85% of the frame height |
| Uploaded for OCI | Square, about 200 x 200 to 900 x 900 px | Square | Plain light background, JPEG under ~200 KB |
Send the photo you already have. We return both files — one sized for the portal, one for printing — checked before you upload.
- A portal-ready file at the exact pixel size the upload screen wants
- A print-ready 2 x 2 file for the physical form
- Checked by a specialist against the current spec before you upload
- Re-done free if the portal still refuses it
Crop, do not resize
Resizing forces a square into a rectangle and stretches the face vertically. You usually cannot see it on screen, but the portal measures it and returns distortionCheck failed.
Cropping does the opposite: it removes space from around the head and leaves every proportion of the face exactly as it was. The same photograph that failed as a resize will usually pass as a crop. If you no longer have the original, take a new one from about 1.5 metres away rather than at arm's length — a close camera bends the features outward on its own.
Save it as a plain JPEG
A photo can be the right size and still be refused. Phone editors and free online croppers often write progressive JPEGs with chroma sub-sampling, and the portal can reject those regardless of dimensions. Save a plain baseline JPEG and upload again.
The OCI photo is a different photo
If you are doing both, prepare them separately. The OCI upload is square with its own pixel range and wants a light background rather than pure white — the OCI photo requirements cover it in full. The full specification for both, including expression and glasses, is on the photo requirements page.
Where these numbers come from
- Passport Seva / GPSP 2.0 upload screen — the 630 x 810 pixel upload requirement, as enforced by the portal (checked 2026-08-19)
- VFS Global application checklist for the USA — the 2 x 2 inch printed photograph and the white background (checked 2026-08-19)
We re-check every fee and rule on this page monthly. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will fix it the same day.