How to take a Canada visa or immigration photo with your phone
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada asks for a frame of at least 35×45 mm with the head measuring 31–36 mm from the chin to the crown. That is the same head height as the Canadian passport photo, inside a frame 25 mm shorter — and that single difference changes the whole crop. In the passport's 50×70 mm print the face fills a little under half the height; here it fills roughly three quarters of it. One will not pass as the other, even when both come out of the same session.
Shoot it the way you would any biometric photo: about 1.5 metres from a plain white or light-coloured wall, the phone at your eye level on the rear camera, daylight from a window in front of you rather than a lamp behind the photographer. Keep the top of your shoulders in the frame and your face centred, and shoot wider than the final rectangle — we place the head and cut to size afterwards.
Why a Canada visa photo comes back
Two identical prints on photographic paper, taken within the last six months, and untouched by any editing tool: those are the three conditions people break most often. A photo that has been sharpened, smoothed or lightened is treated as altered.
After that, the usual list. Non-tinted prescription glasses are accepted while your eyes stay clearly visible and the frames do not cross them; sunglasses are not. A head covering worn for religious reasons is accepted as long as it does not obscure your facial features. The expression is neutral, neither frowning nor smiling, with the mouth closed. Colour and black and white are both fine — the shade of the background matters more than whether the photo has colour in it.
Where a Canada visa photo is used
The same pair serves a temporary resident visa, a study or work permit, and the wider immigration and residence paperwork IRCC processes. It is worth getting right the first time: an office that receives photos which do not meet the specification asks for new ones before it processes anything else in the file. The current specification is on the official IRCC photograph specifications page.
