US passport photo size: 2 × 2 inches, and no pixel count in the rules
A US passport photo is 2 × 2 inches (51 × 51 mm) printed, with your head 1 to 1⅜ inches (25–35 mm) from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head. That is the printed specification. If you are renewing online, the file you upload must be between 54 KB and 10 MB — a floor as well as a ceiling. Neither page states a pixel count: 600 × 600 and 1200 × 1200 are my arithmetic at 300 and 600 DPI, not numbers the State Department publishes. And the floor bites: asked for a 54 KB target, this site's compressor returned 53,097 bytes from a 600 × 600 photo — under the official minimum.
Four things the official pages actually say
- 2 × 2 inches, written as "2 x 2 inches (51 x 51 mm)". That is the printed size, on the Passport Photos page. Both figures appear in the same sentence, which matters later: 2 inches is 50.8 mm, so the 51 mm is rounded up and the two do not convert to the same pixel count.
- The head has its own size rule. "Between 1 -1 3/8 inches (25 - 35 mm) from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head." It is measured on the printed photo, so it is a proportion of the frame, not a pixel range.
- Online renewal adds a file-size range: 54 KB to 10 MB. That sentence sits on the digital photo page, not the photo page. Of the two pages read here, it is the only byte rule: the paper-form page states none.
- Neither page contains a pixel count. I searched both pages for "pixel": the only hit is the word "pixelated" in a sentence about blur. So every "600 × 600" and "1200 × 1200" you have read is somebody's DPI arithmetic — including the table below, which is labelled as mine.
Official text read on 21 October 2026 on the two travel.state.gov pages named in the table. Every byte and quality figure below was measured on the same day with Chrome 155.0.8059.80 on Windows 11, driving this site's compressor.
How these numbers were produced: one real photograph — a road through red rock, not a portrait — at two sizes: 600 × 600, 158,214 bytes and 1200 × 1200, 584,422 bytes. Each was fed to this site's compressor at a stated target, in a fresh browser tab per run so no state carried over. Every byte count, pixel dimension and quality value in the table is what the tool printed in its own report, not a recalculation. The quality sweep further down re-encodes the same 600 × 600 file through the browser's own JPEG encoder — the same one the compressor uses — so the sweep and the table describe the same source at the same size. One caveat worth stating plainly: this is a detailed landscape photograph, and a face on a plain white background should be expected to compress to fewer bytes at the same quality — so treat these figures as the hard end of the range rather than a prediction for your own portrait. That expectation is an inference from how JPEG spends bytes on detail, not a second measurement.
The specification, quoted, in eight rows
These are the sentences as they appear on the State Department's own pages, not a photo studio's summary. The address in the middle column is the exact page, and the last column is the day I read it, so you can check the wording yourself before you pay for a print.
| What the page says, quoted | Where it is | Checked |
|---|---|---|
| "The correct printed size of a passport photo is 2 x 2 inches (51 x 51 mm)." | travel.state.gov — Passport Photos, section "Size and position" | 21 Oct 2026 |
| "The size of your head in the printed photo must be between 1 -1 3/8 inches (25 - 35 mm) from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head." | travel.state.gov — Passport Photos, "Size and position" | 21 Oct 2026 |
| "Background must be white or off-white, free of shadows, and plain without texture, objects, or lines." | travel.state.gov — Passport Photos, "Background" | 21 Oct 2026 |
| "Submit 1 color photo taken in the last 6 months." | travel.state.gov — Passport Photos, "What to know before you start" | 21 Oct 2026 |
| "Submit a high-resolution color photo that is not blurry, grainy, or pixelated. The photo should not have visible printer dots." | travel.state.gov — Passport Photos, "Resolution and quality" | 21 Oct 2026 |
| "Do not change your photo using computer software, phone apps or filters. We check all photos to ensure they were not digitally enhanced or altered." | travel.state.gov — Passport Photos, "Digital changes" | 21 Oct 2026 |
| "The file size should be between 54 KB and 10 MB." | travel.state.gov — Uploading a Digital Photo, "Take and save your photo" | 21 Oct 2026 |
| "The photo is a JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, or HEIF file." | travel.state.gov — Uploading a Digital Photo, "Take and save your photo" | 21 Oct 2026 |
Two pages, both owned by Passport Services. The Passport Photos page carries "Last Updated: March 24, 2026"; the digital photo page carries "Last Updated: May 04, 2026". Neither gives a pixel figure, a DPI figure, or a rule for how many pixels 2 × 2 inches should contain.
There is no pixel count, so here is the arithmetic — and it is mine
The only way to turn "2 × 2 inches" into pixels is to pick a print density. The three densities below are the ones photo labs and print dialogs actually offer. None of the four numbers in each row is published by the State Department; they are 2 inches and the head range multiplied by the DPI in the first column, rounded to the nearest pixel.
| Print density | 2 in → px | 51 mm → px | Head 25 mm → px | Head 35 mm → px |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 150 DPI | 300 | 301 | 148 | 207 |
| 300 DPI | 600 | 602 | 295 | 413 |
| 600 DPI | 1200 | 1205 | 591 | 827 |
The two size columns disagree on purpose. 2 inches is 50.8 mm, and the official sentence rounds that up to 51 mm — a 0.2 mm difference, which is 2.4 pixels at 300 DPI. The head columns are computed from the millimetre figure because the official range is given in millimetres first.
54 KB is a floor, not a ceiling — and that is the part people miss
Every compressor you have used is built to keep a file under a number. The State Department's sentence runs the other way: "between 54 KB and 10 MB". Under 54 KB is a rejected file, not a smaller one. That inverts the habit, and it is why the four rows below the 60 KB line in the next table matter more than the ones above it.
The unit is also ambiguous, and the ambiguity is small enough that it rarely changes an answer — but it changes two of the rows below, so state it. 54 KB is 55,296 bytes if a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, and 54,000 bytes if it is 1,000. 10 MB is 10,485,760 or 10,000,000. The State Department does not define which. Where the choice flips a result, the table says so.
Eight runs: what a byte target does to your pixels
Each row is one run of this site's compressor on one input at one target. "Pixels kept" compares the output dimensions to the input dimensions — when the tool cannot reach a target by lowering quality alone, it shrinks the picture instead, which is exactly what you do not want on a photo that has to print at a fixed physical size.
| Input | Target | Output bytes | Quality | Pixels kept |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 600 × 600 | 54 KB | 53,097 | 0.681 | Yes — 600 × 600 |
| 600 × 600 | 60 KB | 61,208 | 0.761 | Yes — 600 × 600 |
| 600 × 600 | 100 KB | 102,312 | 0.873 | Yes — 600 × 600 |
| 600 × 600 | 240 KB | 158,214 | untouched | Yes — 600 × 600 |
| 600 × 600 | 20 KB | 20,435 | 0.405 | No — 488 × 488 |
| 1200 × 1200 | 54 KB | 55,007 | 0.405 | No — 815 × 815 |
| 1200 × 1200 | 100 KB | 102,384 | 0.405 | No — 1140 × 1140 |
| 1200 × 1200 | 240 KB | 241,897 | 0.775 | Yes — 1200 × 1200 |
Read the first row twice. A 54 KB target returned 53,097 bytes — below 54,000 and below 55,296, so below the official floor whichever way you count a kilobyte. The tool did its job: its promise is "at or under your number", and 53,097 is under 55,296. The rule needs the opposite guarantee. The 60 KB row is the same photo at the same size with 8,111 more bytes, and it clears both readings.
The 240 KB row for 600 × 600 shows the pass-through: the source file was already 158,214 bytes, under the target, so the compressor returned it untouched and reported no quality value at all. And the last three rows are the reason to think about size before you compress. At 1200 × 1200 the tool will not hold your dimensions at 54 KB or even at 100 KB — it spends pixels, down to 815 × 815 and 1140 × 1140, because quality alone cannot get there without going under its own 40% floor.
Why 600 × 600 and 54 KB fight each other
At a fixed 600 × 600, the byte count is almost entirely a function of JPEG quality, and the official floor sits right in the middle of the usable band. Re-encoding the same 600 × 600 file through the browser's encoder and stepping quality gives 43,767 bytes at 0.6 and 56,982 bytes at 0.7. The floor at 54,000 falls between those two steps — and so does 55,296 — so the first quality that satisfies either reading of "54 KB" is somewhere just above 0.65. Below that, a perfectly reasonable-looking photo fails for being too small.
Drop to 150 DPI — 300 × 300 — and the band disappears. Every quality from 0.4 to 0.9 landed between 8,955 and 28,591 bytes on this photograph: all under the floor, all rejected. Only quality 1.0 reached 120,099 bytes. So 300 × 300 is not a size you can submit online at any ordinary quality — and 300 × 300 is what "150 DPI at 2 × 2 inches" means.
What to do
- Printing and mailing or applying in person: the byte rules do not apply. Take the photo at 600 × 600 or larger, keep it sharp, and have it printed at exactly 2 × 2 inches with the head between 25 and 35 mm.
- Renewing online at 600 × 600: ask the compressor for 60 KB, not 54 KB. Measured: 61,208 bytes with every pixel kept. Asking for exactly 54 KB lands you at 53,097 bytes, under the floor.
- Renewing online and you want 1200 × 1200: you need a target near 240 KB. Measured: 241,897 bytes at the full 1200 × 1200. At 54 KB or 100 KB the tool will hand you 815 × 815 or 1140 × 1140 instead.
- Do not use 300 × 300 for the online form. It cannot reach 54 KB at any sane quality.
Questions this page gets asked
What size is a US passport photo in pixels?
Officially, there is no answer — the specification is 2 × 2 inches (51 × 51 mm) printed and nothing else. The conversions are 600 × 600 at 300 DPI, 1200 × 1200 at 600 DPI and 300 × 300 at 150 DPI. Use 600 × 600 or larger; 300 × 300 cannot satisfy the online file-size floor.
Is it 600 × 600 or 1200 × 1200?
Both describe the same 2 inch square at different print densities, and neither is published. For the online form the binding constraint is the 54 KB to 10 MB range, not the pixel count: 600 × 600 reaches it comfortably at 60 KB, while 1200 × 1200 needs about 240 KB before the tool stops shrinking it.
Does the 54 KB minimum apply if I apply at a post office or by mail?
No. That sentence is on the digital photo page, for the file you upload during online renewal. The paper-form page sets no file size, because there is no file — you hand over a print.
Why was my photo rejected for being too small?
Because you optimised for the wrong direction. Compressors keep files under a number; this rule also sets a floor. Measured on a 600 × 600 photo, a 54 KB target produced 53,097 bytes — under the minimum under both readings of "54 KB". Re-run at 60 KB and you get 61,208 bytes, which passes.
All figures measured on 21 October 2026 with Chrome 155.0.8059.80 on Windows 11, using this site's compressor on one photograph at 600 × 600 (158,214 bytes) and 1200 × 1200 (584,422 bytes), plus a quality sweep that re-encodes the 600 × 600 file through the browser's own JPEG encoder. One photograph, so these are sample points and not a distribution — a portrait on a plain white background should be expected to land below these byte counts at the same quality, which is an inference rather than something measured here. The pixel figures are a 150/300/600 DPI conversion of the official 2 inches, not a published requirement. The official pages named in the table were read on the same day and they do change, so check the wording again before you submit. If you are weighing two different countries' rules, the Indian passport photo page reads a specification that gives centimetres and no pixel count at all, which is the same trap in a different shape. If the number your form names is a byte ceiling rather than a floor, the JPG at 100 KB page measures the same question against three other official specs, including the ones where 100 KB is too small a file rather than too large. And if you are compressing a batch rather than one photo, the folder run page shows what happens when ten files share one limit.