Schengen visa photo requirements
Schengen visa applications across the 27 member states follow similar standards:
- Dimensions: 35×45mm (portrait)
- Pixels: typically 413×531px or similar
- Format: JPG
- File size: as low as 10KB on some portals, up to 240KB on others
- Background: light, plain, neutral
Some national portals — particularly for countries like France, Germany and Italy — enforce very small file size limits, often around 10-50KB. This is because their systems were designed years ago and never upgraded.
Why small limits are tricky
20KB is an extremely small file. At that size, dimensions have to be reduced to keep the photo recognisable. For a passport photo this is usually acceptable — the face is small in the frame anyway, and ID photos are always viewed small.
The real challenge is hitting the exact size the portal wants. A 30KB photo on a portal that requires under 20KB will be rejected. A 15KB photo on a portal that accepts 20-50KB will look unnecessarily degraded.
Recommended approach
- Check the exact requirement on your specific country's visa portal
- Resize your photo to the required dimensions (usually 35×45mm at 300 DPI, around 413×531px)
- Compress to a file size slightly under the maximum
FITLY lets you set a max dimension and a target size at the same time. That combination gets you to the exact specification in one step.
Privacy matters for ID photos
A visa photo is an identity document. FITLY processes everything locally in your browser — your photo never leaves your device. No server sees it, nothing is stored.