All countries

How the photograph reaches the authority

Not visa rules. Whether anyone wants a file from you at all — which office takes the picture, which one refuses the one you made, and where two routes under the same name want different things.

Deliberately narrow: nothing here is advice about entitlement, eligibility, fees or duration. Those change constantly and are checked here by nothing. What each page states is what an authority does with the photograph, the source it was read from, and the date it was read.

• India photographs you at the centre If you are applying at a Passport Seva Kendra, you do not need to upload a photo or carry a printed one. The centre photographs you during the appointment, free of charge.
• USCIS stopped accepting your photograph On 12 December 2025 USCIS stopped accepting photographs submitted by applicants. It takes one at the biometrics appointment instead. This does not apply to the State Department, and the difference decides whether you need a file at all.
• Japan online: 600 × 730, not 35 × 45 Since 24 March 2025 every prefecture accepts a passport application through Mynaportal. The file it wants is 600 × 730 pixels — and the ministry warns, in as many words, that this is not the proportion of the 35 × 45 mm photograph used on paper.
• China: the photo comes with a 照片回执 The exit-entry administration hall photographs applicants during the visit, free of charge. A photograph of your own is also accepted — but only together with a 照片回执, a receipt code issued by an approved studio, which no file made at home can carry.
• Russia: three routes under one name "A photo for a Russian passport" describes three different requirements, and the one that applies depends on which passport you are getting and how you are applying. Two of them do not take a photograph from you at all.