Passport Photo at Home

About Passport Photo at Home

Passport Photo at Home is a free passport and visa photo maker and checker that runs in your browser. It isn't a government site, and it never asks for payment.

What it is

Passport Photo at Home is an independent website with one job: to help you make a passport or visa photo at home that meets the published rules, and to show you what to fix when it doesn't. It isn't a government site, a photo studio or a passport service.

Who runs it

Passport Photo at Home is a small independent website. No store, photo studio, passport service or government agency owns it or pays for it. It shows no ads, sells nothing and uses no affiliate links, so no store or price on it earns us money. It went online on September 25, 2026. You can reach us by email on the contact page.

Free, with nothing to unlock

Making, checking and saving a photo are free. There's no sign-up, no paywall, no premium version and no watermark on your photo. We never ask for payment, your passport number, your Social Security number or any other ID number. We don't ask for your name or email address either. Government fees, such as the passport fee, are paid to the government through its own forms and websites, never here.

It runs on your device

The whole tool runs in your web browser. When you take or choose a photo, face detection runs on your phone or computer. The photo is cropped to the size your document needs, checked against the published rules, and turned into the files you save, all on your device. Your photo is never uploaded to us or to anyone else. The privacy policy has the details.

How the rules are checked

Every rule the tool checks comes from an official source, such as the State Department, USCIS, embassies and GOV.UK. Each photo page links to its source and shows the date we last checked the rules against it, plus the date the official page says it was last updated, when it shows one. See how our photo checks work, and their limits for what each automatic check measures and what it can't see.

These are the sources the tool uses and the date we last checked each one:

Rules change. If an official page says something different from this site, follow the official page, and please let us know.

How prices are checked

Store prices are read on each company's own website, and every price shows that site and the date we read it. When a company publishes no price, we say so instead of guessing. The steps and the current readings are in how we read store prices and fees, and every store side by side is on the passport photo cost page.

What we test, and what we don't

The checks are tested on our own photo bench: public-domain portraits and our own test faces, with variants of known walls, light and poses. The test results include the misses. We don't test prints at stores: the print sheets are laid out in code at exactly 2 × 2 in per photo, and the print guide and every store price page ask you to measure one photo with a ruler.

Corrections

When a rule or a price changes, or we get one wrong, we fix the page, its Updated date moves, and the change is listed below.

Recent changes

  • October 21, 2026. Face detection files download only when you tap Take photo or Choose a photo, not when a page opens. The home page answers whether you need a passport photo app. The Walgreens page compares Walgreens with CVS, Walmart, the Post Office and printing at home, and answers ten questions. How we check now explains how we read store prices.
  • October 18, 2026. Two new documents in the tool, each with a page of its official rules: the India visa and e-Visa photo, a square JPEG from indianvisaonline.gov.in's specifications, and the Canada visitor visa photo, 35 × 45 mm under IRCC's temporary resident visa specifications.
  • October 9, 2026. The guides for rejected photos, online renewal, babies, what to wear, US visas, green cards, the DV lottery, Indian passports and OCI cards were rechecked against their official sources, with a sourced spec table, a drawn specimen, the differences from a US passport photo and a checklist on each. Indian passport photos now include the two 35 × 45 mm prints VFS Global asks for.
  • October 7, 2026. The camera now says which way to turn your head, and takes the photo by itself once you've held a good pose for half a second. Facing the camera is measured as an angle against the ±5° frontal limit of the international face-photo standard, and a tilted head no longer counts as a turned one; how our checks work has the numbers. When only the background needs work, Whiten the background sits right under the result, with the usual warning that edited photos can be rejected. Face detection starts loading as soon as the page is ready, shows its progress, and stays in your browser so the next visit starts faster.
  • October 3, 2026. The DV lottery photo page now covers the DV-2027 entry status, links every photo rule to its official source and explains how to enter. DV files are now saved between 54 and 240 kB, because visa digital images allow at most 20:1 compression, and a new check flags black-and-white photos.
  • September 29, 2026. Store prices rechecked on each company's website, with Staples, The UPS Store, AAA and Target added to the passport photo cost comparison. The DV lottery page now reflects the State Department's latest notices, and the online renewal page covers store digital copies and what to do after a rejection. New contact page and fuller terms of use. New OCI photo and signature maker, with the rules from the OCI portal and VFS Global.
  • September 25, 2026. Rules rechecked against the State Department's photo pages at their new addresses. The tool now straightens a slightly tilted head. A new Fix it for me button can correct the color and whiten the background; like Change background, it's optional, warns that an edited photo can be rejected, and the result never says Ready after it. Neither is offered for DV lottery photos, because a manipulated photo makes the entry ineligible. Problems the tool can't fix, such as closed eyes or glare, get short steps and a Retake button. The green card page now explains USCIS's December 2025 photo policy next to the form instructions that still ask for photos.

Contact and problem reports

Found a rule that's out of date, or a photo the tool measured wrong? Report a problem by email and tell us which page you used, your phone or computer and your browser. Please don't attach your photo.

For anything else, email hello@passportphotoathome.com.

Passport Photo at Home is an independent tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the U.S. Department of State, USCIS or any other government agency. It checks photos against published rules but cannot guarantee that a photo will be accepted.