Specs drift — and the drift is exactly why this site exists with dates on every card. This page tracks the requirement changes that matter, newest first, with what the rule was and what it became.

2025–2026

Indian missions abroad → ICAO photo (September–December 2025). The headline change, and an easy one to misread. Indian embassies and consulates began moving passport applicants to ICAO-compliant photos on their own dates — Vienna and Cairo from 1 September 2025, Bern and Doha from 1 December 2025, for example — several of them alongside the switch to the GPSP 2.0 portal, which the MEA says went live at missions worldwide on 28 October 2025. The shared Passport Seva guideline asks for 630×810 px, a face taking up 80–85% of the photo and a white background; Bern adds a 250 KB maximum, and no source sets a minimum or a file format. Inside India nothing moved: applicants aged 4 and over are photographed at the PSK, and children under 4 and paper forms use a 4.5 × 3.5 cm print — the size the booklet already gave in December 2020. Full India spec →

India e-visa — still square. The current e-Visa FAQ specifies a recent square JPEG between 10 KB and 1 MB; the official sample application form also lists a minimum of 350×350 px. Applicants who heard about the missions’ ICAO switch may submit the wrong shape in this separate channel.

US online passport renewal — digital channel normalized (2024–2025). The State Department’s online renewal portal made digital uploads a mainstream passport channel — same square frame and rules as the visa spec, enforced at upload.

Schengen portal fragmentation. The harmonized photo spec hasn’t moved — but its enforcement migrated to outsourced portals (VFS, BLS, TLScontact), each publishing its own pixel window and byte cap. “The Schengen spec” now means one photo plus N different upload rules.

Older changes still catching people out

China COVA pixel window and centre limits. The Macau China visa application centre’s photo guide gives 354–420 × 472–560 px — a 3:4 shape wider than the 33×48 mm paper photo. Current CVASC online-form FAQs dated 26 August 2026 say some forms cannot accept images above 354×472 px. Use the limit shown by your own application centre; the lookup recommends 354×472 as the conservative upload. Full China spec →

US glasses ban (1 November 2016). Glasses went from “allowed, no glare” to outright banned in passport and visa photos — still the most-quoted stale rule on the internet a decade later.

Australia glasses ban (1 July 2018). The Australian Passport Office followed the US two years later — glasses went from allowed to banned outright, a documented medical reason the only exception. Pre-2018 guides still quote the old “allowed” rule; the spec card in the lookup carries the current one.

UK file floor. The UK portal’s 50 KB minimum — unusual in a world of maximums — appeared with the online application system and still surprises people who over-compress.

DV lottery exactness. The 600×600 px square, ≤240 KB, ≤6 months photo has been stable for years — but it’s one of the strictest “exact pixel” specs anywhere, and scans of paper photos are explicitly rejected.

How to keep up

Every card in the lookup carries the date its spec was last verified against the linked authority. When a portal page and an older guide disagree, the portal is almost always the newer document — and the country pages note the known divergences. Spot a change we haven’t caught? Tell us with the authority’s link — corrections get folded into the next dataset review.

Sources

SourceChange entries cite the issuing notices and portals: Passport Seva's ICAO photo guidelines and instruction booklet, the embassy notices from Vienna and Bern, the MEA press release on GPSP V2.0, the Indian e-Visa FAQ, the current CVASC upload FAQ, GOV.UK, travel.state.gov and the EU Visa Code (verified September 2026; India entries re-checked 1 October 2026). Cairo and Doha dates: the full India page links each notice.

Frequently asked questions

How often do passport photo specs change?

Slowly at the paper level, fast at the portal level. Print sizes stay put for years — India's 4.5 × 3.5 cm paper-form photo was already in the 2020 Passport Seva booklet — but upload windows, file caps and recency rules move whenever a portal is rebuilt. That's why every card here carries a verification date.

What was the biggest recent spec change?

Indian embassies and consulates moving passport applicants to ICAO-compliant photos, mission by mission, from 1 September 2025 (Vienna, Cairo) to 1 December 2025 (Bern, Doha): a 630×810 px upload with the face taking up 80–85% of the photo. Inside India nothing changed — the PSK still photographs applicants aged 4 and over, and under-4s and paper forms still use a 4.5 × 3.5 cm print — so a guide that calls it a nationwide switch is describing the wrong channel.

If a site quotes different numbers than this one, who's right?

Check the date and the application channel on both. A page quoting 2×2 in for an Indian mission may simply predate that mission's ICAO notice, while one quoting 630×810 px for an appointment in India is describing the wrong channel. China's published digital range likewise comes from one centre's guide (the Macau China visa application centre), with stricter limits on some current application-centre forms. The authority's own page — linked on every card — is the tiebreaker.