Every number on this site — a size in millimetres, a head height, a background colour, a file-size limit — is a claim about what an authority will accept. This page describes how those claims are made, dated and corrected, so you can judge them instead of trusting them.
The two tiers, and why we show them
A document page carries one of two badges.
Verified. Somebody opened the authority's own page or form, read the requirement, and wrote it down here with the source link and the date it was read. The document page shows both. If we cannot find an official source, a document does not get this badge, however confident we feel.
Standard. The dimensions come from a size database and from ICAO's published practice for machine-readable travel documents, and no official page has been read for this particular document yet. The measurements are almost always right — passport photo sizes are stable and widely shared — but "almost always" is not "verified", and the badge says so.
We could have published everything as verified. Competitors do. The reason we do not is that a wrong number with a confident badge costs you a trip to a government office, and our credibility is worth more than a badge.
What a specification records
Each document in the catalogue is one file with a fixed shape, which is why two documents can never disagree about what "head height" means:
- the physical size in millimetres, or the pixel size for a digital-only submission, and the required resolution;
- the head height range and, where the authority states one, the eye line from the bottom edge;
- the background colour the authority names;
- the rules on glasses, head coverings and expression;
- the file format and maximum file size for an online upload;
- the source URL and the date it was last read, for a verified document.
The same file drives the crop, the automatic checks, the facts box on the page and the structured data a search engine reads. There is no second copy of a number anywhere, so a correction lands everywhere at once.
When sources disagree
They do, often: an embassy page and the ministry page give different millimetres, or a form says 35×45 mm while its own example image is 400×500 pixels at the wrong ratio.
The order of precedence is: the authority that actually issues the document, then the national form or portal you submit through, then an embassy or consulate page, then ICAO. When a conflict cannot be resolved, the document stays standard and the page says what the disagreement is, rather than picking a winner silently.
Dates, and why they are printed
A requirement read in 2024 is not a fact in 2026. Every verified document shows the date its source was last read, and that date is what our sitemap reports as the page's last modification — so a search engine cannot present a stale page as fresh either. A document whose source has not been re-read for a long time is a candidate for re-checking before it is a candidate for promotion.
Who writes and who reviews
Content is written by the TakPhoto editorial work — in practice, the person who runs the service — against the source, never from another photo site. Where a page names a reviewer, that is a second person who read the source independently and agreed with what the page says. Pages that have not had a second reader do not claim one.
We do not publish sponsored content, we take no payment to list or rank a document, and no page on this site is written by a model without a human reading the source it claims.
Tell us when we are wrong
If an office rejected a photo made to our specification, that is the most valuable message we receive, and it is treated as a defect report, not a complaint.
- Use the "report an error" link on the document page, or write to <SUPPORT_EMAIL>.
- Tell us the document, what the counter or the online form said, and — if you have it — the page or form where the real requirement is written.
- You will get an answer within one working day.
What happens next: we re-read the source; if you are right, the specification file is corrected, the change is recorded with its date, and every page, check and app that uses it updates on the next build. If the conflict cannot be settled, the document is demoted to standard and the page says why. Either way, we write back and tell you which of the two happened.
Changes and corrections
Each document page shows when its specification was last verified. Material corrections are recorded in the project's own change log with the date and the source that prompted them, and a document that changes tier keeps the history of why. Nothing is silently edited away: a specification that was wrong is a specification whose correction is worth showing.