Passport photo checker
Rejection notices rarely say which rule the photo broke. Upload the photo exactly as you submitted it, and this checker measures it against the official rules for your document — head size, eye line, background, resolution — and shows what it measured for each one.
Upload the photo exactly as you submitted it — same crop, same background.
PNG or JPEG, up to 12MB. The face scan runs in your browser.
What it measures
Every row in the report is a measurement, not a vibe: the number the checker found, next to the rule it is measured against. The rules come from each authority's published specification, linked on every document requirements page.
- Resolution
- the file's pixel size against the document's minimum
- Aspect ratio
- the photo's proportions against the printed size in millimetres
- Head height
- crown-to-chin as a share of the photo, from facial landmarks (estimated — hair shifts it)
- Eye line
- where the eyes sit in the frame
- Head in frame
- whether crown, eyes and chin all fit inside the photo
- Expression
- a smile score from the face model — an estimate, shown as a number
- Background
- whether the photo's own border area is light and plain
What it cannot check
A passing report means the measurable rules passed. These it does not attempt:
- Shadows on the face or neck — lighting problems are the hardest to judge automatically, and the checks above do not attempt them.
- Glare or reflections on glasses (banned entirely in US passport photos since 2016).
- Focus and motion blur — a technically well-framed but soft photo will pass these checks.
- Head coverings, hair over the face, or anything else that obscures features.
- Whatever a human reviewer adds on top of the published rules. An acceptance decision is always the authority's, and a passing report is not a decision.
For everything on this list, compare your photo with the official examples on the document's requirements page — and when in doubt, take a new photo rather than editing the old one.
Failed a check? Fix it, don't re-shoot blind
Most failed rows trace back to framing or background — both of which the editor rebuilds from a good original. If you are still deciding what went wrong, the rejection guide walks through every rule with the official wording.