Indian passport photo requirements
The current MEA / Passport Seva rules under ICAO 9303, plus the digital upload limits the portal enforces automatically.
Compress an Indian passport photo
Crop to 35 × 45 mm (630 × 810 px), keep the background plain white, then land inside the portal's 10–250 KB window — one workflow.
Upload your photo
Drop a JPG, PNG, HEIC, or WebP onto Sukat's drop zone. An iPhone HEIC works directly — which matters, because the Passport Seva portal silently rejects HEIC, PNG, and WebP.
Crop to 35 × 45 mm (630 × 810 px)
Click Crop and match the 7:9 ratio, keeping the face large — 80–85% of the frame, 36–38 mm chin to crown. For the strict portal check, shoot against a real white wall; Sukat's Remove Background tool is best for exam, OCI, and visa photos rather than the automated Passport Seva upload.
Export JPEG inside the KB window
Choose JPEG and set Maximum File Size to 250 KB — or your exam's tighter cap. Click Convert & Download. Sukat binary-searches for the highest quality that fits, keeping you inside the portal's 10–250 KB range.
Which Indian document needs which photo
India is unusual — different documents need different photo sizes. Here's what each expects, and where Sukat fits.
Indian passport (Passport Seva)
For a standard fresh or reissue application at a PSK or POPSK, your photo is captured at the centre — you don't upload one. A compliant 35 × 45 mm / 630 × 810 px photo is needed for the mPassport upload where it applies, for infant applications (bring a print), and at Indian Missions abroad.
OCI cards and Indian visas
These still use the 51 × 51 mm (2 × 2 inch) square — a different spec from the passport. The e-Visa allows up to 1 MB; BLS/VFS uploads are stricter at 300 KB.
Government exams
UPSC, SSC, RRB, IBPS and similar portals use a rectangular photo with tight KB caps, often 20–50 KB, plus a separate signature scan.
PAN and Aadhaar
PAN card photos are 25 × 35 mm; Aadhaar uses its own digital spec, typically JPEG under 50 KB.
College and scholarship portals
Admission, NSP scholarship, and university forms each set their own dimensions and file-size ceilings.
Consular services abroad
NRIs applying through BLS or VFS often need printed photos to a specified size — confirm the handling centre's page before printing.
Applying for OCI, an Indian visa, or a US visa? Those use the 51 × 51 mm square — see Passport Photo 2×2 Inch. Prepping for UPSC, SSC, or another exam? The UPSC Photo & Signature Compressor handles the exact photo and signature KB caps.
Why Sukat for Indian passport photos
Five things this tool gets right that most "passport photo online" sites get wrong.
Hits the exact KB window
Passport Seva accepts 10–250 KB and rejects anything outside it with no useful error; exams cap tighter still, often 20–50 KB. Generic resizers make you guess a quality percentage. Sukat reverses that — type 250 KB, or the exam's cap, and the algorithm finds the highest quality that fits.
Turns an iPhone HEIC into JPEG
The Passport Seva and exam portals silently reject HEIC, PNG, and WebP — the upload just fails with no explanation. Sukat decodes an iPhone HEIC and exports clean JPEG at the right size and KB.
The right frame, not the old 2×2
Since September 2025 the passport is 35 × 45 mm (630 × 810 px), not the retired 2 × 2 inch square. Sukat crops to the 7:9 ratio with the face sized large, so you don't submit a legacy square that gets rejected on sight.
White background, the safe way
Sukat can drop in a plain white background, but Passport Seva 2.0 flags AI-replaced backgrounds and filters — so for the passport upload, shoot against a real white wall and let Sukat crop, size, and compress. For exams, OCI, and visas, the background tool is fine.
Signature scans too
Passport Seva and most exams need a separate signature image with its own KB cap (often 10 KB–1 MB, or tighter). Sukat compresses a scanned signature to the exact target the same way it does the photo.