Australia Visa Photo Size

The help text for the online photograph, last updated in December 2025, lists the rules: “in digital JPEG format between 70Kb and 3.5Mb, the preferred resolution is 1200x1600 pixels”; no more than 6 months old; a full-face view of the applicant’s head and shoulders; in colour, against a neutral or light grey coloured background that contrasts with the face; and unedited, which the department spells out as background, moles, wrinkles, scars or red eyes not being removed. Glasses come off unless medically necessary; a religious head covering is allowed when the whole face is visible.

Two things the text leaves out. There is no chin-to-crown measurement; a full-face view of head and shoulders is the only test. And 1200 × 1600 is called preferred, not mandatory, but it is the only figure published, so nothing is gained by sending another.

The help text closes its rules plainly: only upload a digital copy of the photograph; a scan of a photo or a photograph of a photo is not acceptable. A scanned print carries paper texture and a colour cast; a phone picture of a print adds glare. Upload the file the camera made, or the digital copy a studio emails you; the department recommends a professional provider such as an Australian Post Office.

Unedited covers more than retouching. A white background painted in, smoothed skin and brightened eyes are all edits, and several photo sites sell exactly those. Cropping and scaling, all this page does, change which part of the picture is kept and how many pixels describe it, not what is in it. A cluttered wall calls for a new photo, not a painted one.

1200 × 1600 reduces to 3:4 and holds 1,920,000 pixels. Other shapes lose something to the centred cut: a square picture drops an eighth of its width at each side, a landscape 4:3 shot about a fifth, and a 9:16 frame an eighth from top and bottom, which can take the hair. A 35 × 45 mm studio file is 7:9, a little wider, and loses under 2 per cent per side. A forwarded copy smaller than this is enlarged and looks soft; start from the original.

Paper forms are a separate case: a recent passport photograph of 45mm x 35mm, head and shoulders only, less than six months old, with the name of the person printed on the back. Use the millimetre resizer at 35 × 45 and 300 DPI, print at actual size, and write the name with a pen. On weight, sample pictures at 1200 × 1600 came out between roughly 110 KB and 510 KB, well inside the window; a sharp phone photo scaled down is likely to weigh more, and the result card gives the exact figure. A PNG stays a PNG here and is not what the form wants, so convert it to JPG first; iPhone HEIC comes out as JPG.