Upload limits by application portal

A photo can satisfy every rule about face, background and head size and still be refused, because the portal rejected the file first. Portals check three things before a human looks at your picture: pixel dimensions, file weight, and format. These are the numbers we found in the primary sources, including where two official pages of the same government disagree.

Where the rejections actually happen

Every case below is a real conflict between what a country publishes about its photo and what its upload system enforces:

The same government publishes a 10 MB ceiling on one page, 5 MB on its own photo form, and 20 MB in legislation. Uploading a 12 MB file is legal, useless, and rejected.
Most European visa portals accept a print photo of 35 × 45 mm yet cap the electronic version at 120 KB — a size that is easy to miss and impossible to see on a phone.
Portals that require an exact pixel count reject images that are one pixel off, which is the normal result of exporting from a phone editor.
Portals that require a minimum weight as well as a maximum one reject a perfectly good photo that was compressed too hard.
One portal checks the aspect ratio, not just the size: Canada requires 3:2 in portrait orientation, so a correctly sized square crop fails anyway.

The table

Portal / document	Pixel rule	File weight	Format	Source
UK passport — online application (HMPO)	at least 600 × 750 px	50 KB – 10 MB	colour digital photo	gov.uk/photos-for-passports
UK — HMPO photo form (paper / non-digital route)	at least 600 × 750 px	50 KB – 5 MB	digital photo	assets.publishing.service.gov.uk — Photo_Form.pdf
UK visa, permission to stay, immigration	at least 600 × 750 px, portrait	50 KB – 6 MB	jpg / jpeg, not mirrored	gov.uk/guidance/how-to-take-a-photo-for-a-visa-application-or-permission
UK — statutory instrument on passport photographs	at least 750 px tall × 600 px wide	no more than 20 MB	electronic file	legislation.gov.uk uksi/2022/1382 schedule 2
Schengen / EU visa portal via VFS (Belgium mission example)	at least 240 × 320 px	not more than 120 KB	JPEG	vfsglobal.com — photo specification PDF
VFS extended services (Malta mission example)	250 × 340 px accepted; 290 × 340 rejected	not more than 120 KB	JPEG	vfsglobal.com — one-pager, Malta extended services
VFS — US visa services (India)	height and width must be equal	10 KB – 300 KB	JPEG	services.vfsglobal.com — photo specifications PDF
VFS — Finland residence permit photo	exactly 500 × 653 px	not more than 250 KB	JPEG, no over-compression artefacts	vfsglobal.com — passport photo instructions PDF
US Diversity Visa Lottery entry	exactly 600 × 600 px	not more than 240 KB	JPEG	Federal Register — Diversity Visa instructions
Canada — passport digital photo (IRCC)	3:2 portrait; 1200–3000 px wide, 1800–4500 px high	200 KB – 4 MB	digital photo	canada.ca — digital passport photos
Canada — proof of citizenship, online	at least 420 × 540 px	about 240 KB, no more than 4 MB	JPG / JPEG, minimal compression	canada.ca — proof of citizenship photo specifications
Australia — citizenship application, online	preferred 1200 × 1600 px	70 KB – 3.5 MB	JPEG; scans and photos of photos rejected	immi.homeaffairs.gov.au — photo requirements for citizenship applications
Australia — ImmiCard application	1200 × 1600 px, vertical	no more than 500 KB	JPEG, fine compression	immi.homeaffairs.gov.au — ImmiCard help

Figures checked 12 November 2026 against the pages named in the last column. Where a portal publishes several ceilings for different routes, every ceiling is listed rather than the most convenient one.

The case that is not a size limit at all

Japan runs two photo frames that guide sites routinely merge into one: the passport frame is 35 × 45 mm, while the visa application form prints its own box at 45 mm × 45 mm, or 2 in × 2 in. A 35 × 45 print cannot fill a square box without either cropping the chin or leaving blank bands, so the failure appears as a rejected application rather than a rejected upload. The form, the alternative it accepts, and what to do about an eVISA ceiling we have not verified are on the Japan page.

The United Kingdom has the same shape of problem in the other direction. Its digital visa upload enforces a pixel and byte window — at least 600 × 750 px, 50 KB to 6 MB — while the print frame is 35 × 45 mm, which is 413 × 531 px at 300 DPI and therefore too small for the upload. Those rules are transcribed on the UKVI page.

What this means in practice

1. A print specification is not the upload specification

“35 × 45 mm” is a measurement on paper. The portal is reading a JPEG, and it applies its own ceiling in kilobytes. A studio print that satisfies the millimetre rule can still fail the upload because nobody converted the file with a size limit in mind.

2. Both ends of the range matter

Several portals set a floor as well as a ceiling — 50 KB minimum at HMPO, 10 KB minimum at VFS India. Over-compressing to clear a ceiling can push a file under the floor, and the error message looks identical: rejected photo, no reason given.

3. Exact pixel rules are exact

Where a portal asks for an exact number of pixels (600 × 600, or 500 × 653), a one-pixel deviation counts as a different image. Crop to the target dimensions rather than resizing a near-match.

4. The strictest source is not always the enforced one

When a country publishes several ceilings, upload the file against the smallest one. That passes every route, and it removes the need to know which page your application happens to follow.

5. Aspect ratio can be a rule of its own

Canada’s digital passport photo is defined by ratio and orientation — 3:2, taken in portrait — before any pixel number is checked. A square crop with the right number of pixels is still the wrong file. Country pages that quote only millimetres will not tell you this; the upload specification will.

If a portal accepts your file but a caseworker later rejects the person in it, the problem is in the photo itself — background, head proportion, lighting or recency — not the file. Those rules are on each country’s specification page.

Nothing here can be checked by us on your behalf: our tools run in your browser, so we never receive the file you uploaded. The table exists so you can compare your export against the portal’s stated numbers before you submit.