Australian visa photo — a 1200 × 1600 px ImmiAccount upload and 45 × 35 mm prints for paper forms

For an Australian visa applied for online, the Department of Home Affairs asks for one digital photograph for each applicant, children included: a JPEG between 70 KB and 3.5 MB, with a preferred resolution of 1200 × 1600 pixels, no more than six months old, showing a full-face view of the head and shoulders, in colour, against a neutral or light grey background that contrasts with your face. It must be unedited, and a scan of a photo or a photograph of a photo is not accepted. Paper visa forms that want a print ask for a recent 45 mm × 35 mm passport photograph with the person’s name on the back.

Where the visa photo rules come from

Home Affairs’ visa photo rules are not gathered on one page. They sit in the help text that ImmiAccount shows when you attach a document, and in the paper forms. This page draws on these sources, all read on 27 October 2026:

The specification at a glance

No visa page gives a head size, so the guides use 32 to 36 mm, Home Affairs’ figure for paper citizenship photos and the same band the Australian Passport Office uses.

Making the photo with this page

1. Start from an original digital photo, ideally one a professional provider emails to you, as Home Affairs recommends. A phone photo taken by someone else also works for the crop, but do not photograph a print.
2. Choose the file. Photo type already reads Australia visa (Home Affairs) — 35 × 45 mm / 1200 × 1600 px.
3. Keep Show face-position guides on. Put the top of your hair on the yellow line about 4.1 mm from the top, and your chin in the blue band from about 36.1 to 40.1 mm down.
4. Adjust by dragging, or with Zoom, Horizontal position and Vertical position, until your face is centred and the tops of your shoulders show.
5. Leave Background on Keep the original, because the photo must be unedited.
6. Choose a Print sheet option if you need prints, then press Make passport photos.

You receive a file ending “-australia-visa-digital-1200x1600.jpg” for ImmiAccount. It is taken from your photo at full resolution, trimmed a little at the sides to the 3:4 shape, and saved at the highest JPEG quality between 70 KB and 3.5 MB; the result line states its size, and warns you if the file cannot land inside that window. You also get a 413 × 531 pixel print at 300 DPI and a 4 × 6 inch sheet of eight 35 × 45 mm photos, which turned sideways match the 45 × 35 mm the forms describe.

Attaching it in ImmiAccount

There is a photograph section under each applicant’s name, so attach every person’s photo to that person. Home Affairs warns that attachments cannot be deleted once added, so check the file before you select Attach. If you start with an iPhone picture saved as HEIC, convert it to JPG first, since the photograph help text asks for JPEG.

What the tool does not check

• Face position. The lines are fixed; nothing detects your face.
• Picture quality. Lighting, focus, contrast, shadows, red-eye and reflections are your job.
• Source resolution. If the area you crop holds fewer than 1200 × 1600 pixels, because the photo is small or you zoomed in a long way, the file is enlarged to that size and looks softer. Start from the full-size original.
• Your visa’s own list. Some forms ask for several photos or photos of everyone in the application, and a case officer can still ask for a new photo.

Reasons a visa photo can be refused

The help text and the citizenship examples show the usual problems: an edited picture, a scan or photo of a print, a photo older than six months, a background that is not neutral or light grey, a face lit too brightly or unevenly, shadows on the face or background, hair covering the edges of the face, a tilted head, a smile, closed eyes, glasses with reflections, a patterned head covering, and another person, a toy or any other object in the frame.

The Australian passport photo page covers the Passport Office’s separate rules. Other countries are compared on the photo sizes table, HEIC to JPG converts iPhone files, and Resize Image in KB helps when another form sets a different file limit.