UK Passport Photo Checker Online

It measures your photo against the published rules: how big your head is in the frame, whether the background is plain, whether your face is evenly lit and your expression neutral. Ours runs seven automated checks and tells you in plain English what to fix. If you want a preview of what usually trips people up, here are the ten most common rejection reasons.

No. Checking is free, and you only pay if the photo passes and you want the finished file. That means you can try a few shots and see which one works before spending anything. The UK passport photo checker is most useful when you've read the basics first, and our complete guide to the rules covers them in one place.

A digital photo has to be at least 600 by 750 pixels and between 50KB and 10MB. The lower limit is the one that catches people, usually because the photo was sent through a messaging app that squashed it. Running your original file through a UK passport photo checker avoids that, and this article on file requirements explains why.

Then the UK passport photo checker has done its job and you've found out for free. The result tells you what went wrong, and it's nearly always something small like a shadow on the wall or a head that's slightly too far away. Fix that one thing and try again. Good light does most of the work, and we've put together a lighting guide that helps.

You can, but selfies fail more often than other photos. At arm's length the lens is close enough to distort your face, and the angle tends to leave shadows under the chin. If a selfie doesn't pass the UK passport photo checker, ask someone to take it from a couple of metres away and run it again. There's more on why selfies struggle.

A pass from the UK passport photo checker means your photo lines up with the published standard, which is the best signal you can get before you apply. Nobody outside the Passport Office can promise their decision, though. If a photo is still turned down, you're not out of pocket on time as much as you might fear, and here's what happens next.

It should have been taken within the last month when you submit your application. Don't run an old picture through a UK passport photo checker and expect it to be accepted, even if it passes on every other measure. We explain the two different clocks in our photo validity article.