Canada's digital passport photo, for online renewal
IRCC runs two photo tracks that are not interchangeable: a printed 50 × 70 mm photo for paper applications, and a digital file for online renewal. The digital track has its own pixel window, its own byte window and its own face-proportion rule, and it is the one people get wrong because they reach for the print rule first.
The digital file, rule by rule
| Property | Requirement | Why it catches people out |
|---|---|---|
| Format | .jpeg or .jpg | HEIC from an iPhone and PNG from a screenshot both fail |
| Aspect | 3:2, camera oriented in portrait mode | A landscape 3:2 crop is the wrong orientation even though the ratio matches |
| Minimum pixels | 1,800 px high by 1,200 px wide | A phone photo cropped to the face often falls just under the height floor |
| Maximum pixels | 4,500 px high by 3,000 px wide | Newer phone sensors exceed this before any cropping |
| File size | 200 KB – 4 MB on the dedicated digital-photo page; the photos.html page states 200 KB – 5 MB | The floor is real: an over-compressed file below 200 KB is rejected as well. Two official pages disagree on the ceiling — see the note below |
| Face proportion | Chin-to-crown between 45% and 50% of the photo's height | The print track asks for 31–36 mm on a 70 mm frame, which is a different proportion of the same subject |
| Provenance | Saved directly from the original file captured by the camera; a scan of a printed photo is not accepted | Scanning the 50 × 70 mm print is the single most common wrong move |
| Alteration | Not altered in any way, including colour, brightness, contrast, sharpness, cropping around head and shoulders, background replacement, and edits made with filters or AI tools | Passport photo apps that "clean up" the background fail this by design |
| Colour | Colour or black and white; natural skin tone | Black and white is allowed here, but not for every programme |
| Recency | Taken no more than 6 months before submission | An old passport photo is usually older than six months |
| Photographer details | When you upload, you supply the studio or photographer's name, their address and the date the photo was taken | Self-shot files have no studio to name, which is why the page says the photo must be taken by a commercial photographer |
The print track, for contrast
Paper applications — in person or by mail — need two identical, unaltered photos at 50 mm wide by 70 mm high, with the face measuring 31 mm to 36 mm chin-to-crown. They must be taken by a commercial photographer and printed on plain high-quality photographic paper; Canada.ca states plainly that photos printed at home, or on heavyweight paper, are not accepted.
That 31–36 mm on a 70 mm frame is between 44 and 51 per cent of the height, which is close to the digital 45–50 per cent rule but not identical — and the two are checked against different artefacts, a printed sheet versus a file.
Where the online renewal upload actually fails
- A scanned print. The rules exclude scans explicitly, and a scan also tends to land outside the 1,800 px height floor.
- A file under 200 KB. People compress hard to "be safe" and cross the lower bound instead of the upper one. 200 KB is a floor, not a target.
- Face proportion computed against the print frame. 31–36 mm is meaningful on a 70 mm print; on a 3:2 digital file the rule is a percentage of height, and the two do not convert cleanly.
- Background tidied in an app. Canada.ca lists background replacement and shadow removal as alterations, and states the application will be rejected if the photo has been altered in any way.
- HEIC left unconverted. iPhones shoot HEIC; the portal wants .jpeg or .jpg.
- Missing photographer details. Name, address and capture date are entered at upload and cannot be invented afterwards.
Related pages
The full Canadian specification, including the print and child provisions, is on the Canada page. For the cases where a country's passport office and its visa portal publish different limits, see portal upload limits; for the twenty-destination comparison, see the spec matrix.
Method, and one conflict we are not going to hide
Every figure above is quoted from a Canada.ca page and was checked on 13 November 2026. One figure is genuinely contested, and this page will not pretend otherwise.
The ceiling. The dedicated digital-photo specifications page and the official Digital Passport Photo Specifications document state 200 KB to 4 MB. The general Passport photo requirements page, which we also read, states 200 KB to 5 MB. Both are Government of Canada pages; they were not written on the same date and have not been reconciled publicly.
We publish 4 MB as the working ceiling, for one reason: it is the stricter of the two, so a file that meets 4 MB also meets 5 MB, and the reverse is not true. It is also the figure carried by the specification document that a photographer would be handed. If you are working near the limit, compress to 4 MB rather than 5 MB and you satisfy either reading.
Programme rules that Canada.ca does not publish are not filled in with estimates. Report an error to [email protected]; our general standard is on the methodology page.