Passport Photo Compressor
Last reviewed: May 2026
Every country's passport portal enforces its own KB ceiling and pixel ratio. A 3 MB camera-roll photo will be rejected by every one of them. Sukat compresses passport-style photos to the exact specification a portal demands — US 2 × 2 inch under 240 KB, Schengen 35 × 45 mm under 500 KB, India 35 × 45 mm under 300 KB, and so on — entirely in your browser. No upload, no signup, no watermark.
Country portals update their photo specifications between cycles. The numbers below reflect the most recent published guidance, but always cross-check the official portal before submitting your application.
Passport photo requirements by country
| Country | Dimensions | File size | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 2 × 2 in (51 × 51 mm) — 600 × 600 px @ 300 DPI | Under 240 KB | JPEG |
| United Kingdom | Min 600 × 750 px | 50 KB – 10 MB | JPEG |
| Schengen visa (EU) | 35 × 45 mm | Under 500 KB (varies by embassy) | JPEG |
| Canada (IRCC) | 35 × 45 mm | 60 KB – 240 KB | JPEG |
| Australia (DFAT) | 35 × 45 mm | 100 KB – 1 MB | JPEG |
| India (Passport Seva, UPSC OTR) | 35 × 45 mm — ~350 × 350 px for OTR | 20 KB – 300 KB | JPEG |
| Philippines (DFA) | 35 × 45 mm | Under 300 KB | JPEG |
| Japan visa | 35 × 45 mm | Under 240 KB | JPEG |
How to compress your passport photo
- Upload your photo. Drop a JPG, PNG, HEIC, or WebP onto Sukat's drop zone. iPhone HEIC works directly — no need to convert first.
- Crop and (if needed) replace the background. Click Crop and pick 1:1 for the US (square) or use the free crop with the on-canvas dimension hint for 35 × 45 mm. If your background is busy, click Remove Background — Sukat segments you in your browser using a local AI model and offers a colour picker. Pick white.
- Set the KB target and download. Choose JPEG as the output format and type the country's ceiling into the Maximum File Size field (240 for the US, 300 for India and PH, 500 for Schengen, and so on). Click Convert & Download. Sukat binary-searches for the highest quality that fits.
When you need a compressed passport photo
The "passport photo" form factor is reused well beyond actual passport applications. Most government and institutional portals reuse the same 35 × 45 mm or 2 × 2 inch frame:
- New or renewed passport applications — every country's online portal requires a digital passport photo at a specific KB and pixel size.
- Visa applications — Schengen, US DS-160, Canada IRCC, UK eVisa, Australia ETA, and most embassy portals share the 35 × 45 mm spec.
- Government IDs — driver's licences, voter cards, national IDs (Aadhaar in India, PhilSys in PH, MyKad in Malaysia) all reuse the same photo standard.
- Recruitment exams — UPSC, SSC, IBPS, civil service and state PSC portals across India accept the same OTR-format photograph.
- Educational applications — university admissions, scholarship portals, and student visa applications.
- Professional licensing — bar exams, medical councils, professional certification bodies.
- Online banking and KYC — many fintechs and banks request a passport-style headshot for digital onboarding.
If your specific use case is the UPSC OTR portal, the dedicated UPSC Photo & Signature Compressor covers the full photo + signature workflow. For just the signature side, see Compress Signature to 20KB.
Why Sukat for passport photos
Hits the KB ceiling exactly. Generic resizers ask for a quality percentage and let you guess. Sukat reverses that — set 240 KB, 300 KB, 500 KB, whatever the portal demands, and the algorithm searches for the highest quality that fits. You won't bounce off the upload three times because your file is 312 KB instead of 300.
Background-fix built in. A surprising number of rejections are background-related, not size-related. Sukat's Remove Background button runs an AI segmentation model in your browser, isolates you, then offers a colour picker so you can drop in pure white — exactly what most portals require.
HEIC-aware. If you took the photo on iPhone, you don't need to convert HEIC to JPG first; Sukat decodes it directly. Most online passport tools fail silently on HEIC input.
Privacy that matches the document. Your passport photo is identity-grade. Sukat runs entirely in your browser — your photo never reaches a server, no account, no email. Switch to airplane mode after the page loads to verify.
Multilingual UI. Available in 10 languages, including Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Filipino, Indonesian — most passport-photo tools are English-only.
FAQ
What dimensions does my passport photo need to be?
Most countries require 35 × 45 mm (3.5 × 4.5 cm), which scales to roughly 413 × 531 pixels at 300 DPI. The United States is the main exception at 2 × 2 inches (51 × 51 mm, or 600 × 600 px at 300 DPI). Always cross-check the current requirement on the country's official portal.
What KB limit should I target?
Common ceilings are 240 KB for US passports and Canada IRCC, 300 KB for India and Philippines, 500 KB for Schengen visas, and up to 10 MB for UK passports (with a 50 KB minimum). Sukat lets you set any KB or MB ceiling and binary-searches for the highest quality that fits.
Can Sukat replace the background with white?
Yes. Click Remove Background; Sukat segments the subject in your browser using a local AI model, then opens a colour picker. Pick white or off-white, apply, and compress. Most country portals require plain white or light-grey.
Does Sukat upload my photo anywhere?
No. Compression and editing run in your browser via the Canvas API and an in-browser AI model. Your photo never reaches a server. Verify by switching to airplane mode after the page loads — the conversion still works.
Will the photo lose quality at the country's limit?
Sukat picks the highest quality that fits, so most photos compress with no visible quality loss at typical ceilings (240–500 KB at passport resolution). Below 100 KB you may see slight softening — still acceptable for almost any portal.
Does this work on iPhone or Android?
Yes. Sukat works on iPhone Safari and Android Chrome with the same drop, crop, set-target, download flow. iPhone HEIC photos work directly without converting them to JPG first.
Related tools
- UPSC Photo & Signature Compressor — full UPSC OTR workflow (photo + signature)
- Compress Signature to 20KB — signature-only flow at 20 KB
- Convert HEIC to JPG — convert iPhone photos before passport portals that don't accept HEIC
- Image Size Guide — full passport / ID / web file-size reference
- How It Works — full mechanics of Sukat's compression pipeline