Quick answer
A U.S. passport photo must be one color photo taken in the last 6 months, printed 2x2 inches (51x51 mm), with your head 1 to 1-3/8 inches (25 to 35 mm) from chin to top of head, on a plain white or off-white background, facing the camera with a neutral expression, no glasses, and no digital edits or filters. Those are the current State Department rules, and they have been stable for years. What changes is the submission path: online renewal takes a digital upload instead of a printed 2x2, so confirm whether you are mailing, applying in person, or renewing online before you export anything.
Printed size and paper
For traditional paper passport applications, the printed photo must be 2x2 inches (51x51 mm) on matte or glossy photo-quality paper. Your head must measure 1 to 1-3/8 inches (25 to 35 mm) from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head, and the image should be sharp, unpixelated, and correctly exposed with no visible printer dots. Do not print on regular copy paper. Do not submit photocopies or scanned photos. Do not use a photo that is smudged, creased, scratched, or cut unevenly. In practice, this usually fails after the photo leaves the phone. The source image may be fine, but the print kiosk scales it, adds a border, or uses a low-quality export. Measure the final print before mailing or submitting it. Most teams miss this part: physical size is a property of the print, not the digital preview.
Face, expression, and glasses
Use a photo taken in the last 6 months. Face the camera directly without tilting your head. Keep both eyes open and visible and the mouth closed with a neutral or natural expression. Take off eyeglasses, sunglasses, and tinted glasses, and do not rest them on your head. Take off hats and head coverings unless you wear one for documented religious or medical reasons, in which case a signed statement goes with the application. Take off face coverings and masks, headphones, and earbuds, and do not wear a uniform or camouflage. Avoid heavy accessories and anything that blocks the face. Hair and beards are fine when they reflect current appearance and keep the face visible. A broad smile, tilted head, or flattering camera angle can make the image look friendly but less compliant. Passport photos are identity records. They need clear facial geometry more than personality. The key takeaway is that the best passport photo looks plain. That is not a flaw. It is the assignment.
Background and lighting
Use a plain white or off-white background. No patterns, doorframes, fabric wrinkles, wall texture, furniture, or visible shadows. Light the face evenly from the front and avoid direct overhead light. Standing away from the wall reduces the dark outline shadow behind the head. This looks good on paper, but many home setups fail because the background and face are not lit separately. A white wall can still look grey. A clear face can still cast a shoulder shadow. A nice room can still be a bad passport studio. If the final crop has any doubt, retake with softer light and more wall distance.
Digital changes and AI edits
The State Department is blunt about this: submit the original, unchanged photo, and do not change it using computer software, phone apps, filters, or artificial intelligence. Cropping and sizing the original to 2x2 inches or to the required upload dimensions is formatting. Everything else is alteration. That includes the background. Replacing or "cleaning up" a background with a removal tool is explicitly called out as unacceptable, because it changes the outline of your head, face, and neck. If your wall is not plain white or off-white, retake the photo in front of one instead of fixing it in software. The same applies to red eye: adjust the flash and retake rather than editing the eyes. Skin smoothing, face reshaping, digital makeup, hair reconstruction, and erasing glasses from the eye area are all disqualifying. In a production workflow, the useful split is compliance fix versus cosmetic edit. Compliance fixes make the file or print match the rule. Cosmetic edits change how the person looks. Passport photos need the first category, not the second. Do not let a polished image become a less trustworthy identity document.
Online renewal differences
Online passport renewal, when available for your situation, may ask for a digital upload instead of a printed 2x2 photo. That changes the export requirements. Pixel dimensions, file type, and file size become part of the checklist. The capture rules still overlap: plain background, clear face, no glasses, recent image. This is where searches like passport photo online, passport photo maker, digital passport photo, and upload passport photo become practical. The user is not asking for a studio address. They are trying to turn a phone capture into the exact file the renewal system accepts. The article should make that path obvious: capture, validate, crop, compress, upload. Before preparing the photo, confirm whether your route is mail-in, in-person, or online. Then produce the right deliverable. A printed-photo checklist and a digital-upload checklist are related, but they are not interchangeable. If you simplify it, same face rules, different output rules.