DV Lottery Photo Requirements: 600 × 600, 240 kB, and What to Avoid

The Diversity Visa program, the "Green Card lottery", asks for one digital photo with the entry, and a photo that breaks the rules is one of the few things that can disqualify an entry outright. The rules are short and precise: a JPEG of 240 kB or less, square, exactly 600 × 600 pixels, in color, with your head between 50% and 69% of the height. This guide goes through each one as the State Department words it, shows how to check a photo before you enter, and explains the two places people most often go wrong: editing the photo, and the file size.

Everything here was checked on 24 October 2026 against the State Department's photo requirements page. That site turns away automated readers, so we read the same page on the Department's adoption.state.gov mirror.

The rules, as the State Department words them

The photo page has a section just for Diversity Visa entrants. It says the digital image must be:

• In JPEG (.jpg) file format.
• Equal to or less than 240 kB (kilobytes) in file size.
• In a square aspect ratio (height must equal width).
• 600 × 600 pixels in dimension.

The general rules for every U.S. visa photo apply too:

• In color.
• Sized so the head is between 1 inch and 1 3/8 inches (22 mm to 35 mm), or 50% to 69% of the image's total height, from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head.
• Taken in front of a plain white or off-white background.
• Not digitally enhanced or altered to change your appearance in any way.

What 600 × 600 actually means

The page gives one size, 600 × 600 pixels, not a range. A square that is bigger, say 1200 × 1200, is the right shape but the wrong size, so bring it down to 600. A photo that is 600 pixels wide but 800 tall is the wrong shape and has to be cropped.

Cropping is where the head rule comes in. On a 600-pixel photo, 50% to 69% means your head, from the bottom of the chin to the top of the hair, must be between 300 and 414 pixels tall. In practice that is a head-and-shoulders crop: the top of your hair a little below the top edge, your shoulders at the bottom. Too far away, and the head comes out under 300 pixels; too close, and it is over 414 or the top of the head is cut off.

A phone photo is usually 3000 to 4000 pixels on each side, far more than needed. Start with the full photo, choose the square around your head and shoulders, then shrink that square to 600 × 600. Shrinking a large photo down gives a sharper result than enlarging a small one, so do not start from a thumbnail or a screenshot.

The 240 kB limit, and the 1,000 versus 1,024 problem

A 600 × 600 JPEG at good quality is usually 60 to 150 kB, comfortably under 240. The limit mostly bites when the photo was saved at maximum quality or still carries a large preview image inside it.

The trap is how the size is counted. The page says "240 kB". In the decimal system a kilobyte is 1,000 bytes, so 240 kB is 240,000 bytes. Many computers count a kilobyte as 1,024 bytes instead, so they would call a 245,000-byte file "239 KB". If the entry system counts the decimal way, that file is over.

The safe target is under 240,000 bytes. To see the exact number, look at the file's properties on Windows or Get Info on a Mac, which list the size in bytes. Our guide to KB and KiB explains where the two counts come from and why forms disagree.

Editing: what is allowed and what is not

The State Department's line is that photos must not be "digitally enhanced or altered to change your appearance in any way". Two things follow.

Cropping and resizing are allowed. The Department runs its own photo tool, linked from the same page, which lets you select an image, resize or rotate it and crop it "to a square image of exactly 600 x 600 pixels". It also says the tool is for cropping only and does not check the quality of your image. Any tool that only crops and resizes is doing the same job.

Changing how you look is not. That covers beauty filters, smoothing skin, whitening teeth, removing blemishes, changing eye color, and adding or removing glasses digitally. It also, in practice, covers swapping the background: the rule is about the photo as taken, and a background cut out by software is an altered photo. If your wall is not white or off-white, take the photo again in front of one. A sheet of white poster board or a light door works.

This is why our DV photo resizer crops and resizes only. The background and clean-up options that the general resizer has are switched off on that page.

Taking a photo that passes

Light. Face a window in daylight, or stand under even indoor light. Shadows across the face or on the wall behind you are what most often make a photo look non-compliant to a reviewer. Avoid a single lamp to one side.

Background. A plain white or off-white wall, with nothing on it: no door frames, pictures or patterns. Stand about a meter in front of it, so your shadow falls on the floor rather than the wall.

Pose. Face the camera directly, both eyes open, with a neutral expression, as the page asks. Hold the camera at eye height, not looking up from below.

Glasses. "Eyeglasses are no longer allowed in new visa photos", except with a medical statement signed by a medical professional. Take them off.

Head coverings. Not allowed if they hide the hair or hairline, unless worn daily for a religious purpose, with the full face visible and no shadow on it. Headphones and hands-free devices are not allowed either.

Who takes it. Someone else, from about 1.2 meters away, with the phone's normal lens. A selfie at arm's length distorts the face and usually puts the head at an angle.

Scanning a printed photo

If you have a recent printed passport-style photo, you can scan it. The page asks for a print of 2 × 2 inches (51 × 51 mm) scanned at 300 pixels per inch, which gives a 600 × 600 image. Scan at 300 ppi, crop to the photo's edge, and check the head size: printed 2 × 2 photos follow the same 1 to 1 3/8 inch head rule, so a correct print scans to a correct file.

Do not scan a photo that has already been through a printer's retouching. If it was smoothed or the background was replaced, it is an altered photo.

Checking your file before you enter

Run through this list with the file you plan to submit:

The checker on our DV photo page reads the first three from the file itself and marks each pass or fail. It cannot judge your expression, your lighting or your background; those are for you to look at.

If you are selected

Selected entrants who go on to the immigrant visa interview need printed photos too: two identical photos, printed on photo-quality paper, 2 × 2 inches (51 × 51 mm), following the same appearance rules. If you need to print them yourself, our print sheet lays out 2 × 2 inch copies on 4 × 6 or A4 paper with lines to cut along; print the PDF at actual size so each one comes out at exactly 2 inches.

The entry photo and the interview photos do not have to be the same picture, but the interview photos must be recent, taken in the last six months under the general rules, so plan to take new ones.

Common mistakes

Uploading the phone's original. It is the wrong size, usually several megabytes, and often HEIC rather than JPEG on iPhones. It has to be cropped, resized and saved as JPEG.

A square that is too big. 1200 × 1200 is square but not 600 × 600. Resize it.

Head too small. A crop that shows your whole upper body leaves the head under 50%. Crop closer.

A cut-out background. Tempting when the wall is not white, but it is an altered photo. Retake it.

Saving a PNG and renaming it. Renaming does not change the format inside the file. Save as JPEG.

The size just over 240 kB. Your computer may say 239 KB for a 245,000-byte file. Aim under 240,000 bytes.

Last year's photo. Your entry photo should be recent, and the interview photos must be taken in the last six months.

Privacy

Your entry photo is a face photo tied to your name and passport details, so think about where you upload it before the entry itself. Many free photo tools send the image to a server. The tools on this site run in your browser: the photo is cropped, resized and saved on your own phone or computer and never leaves it. Whatever you use, the only place your photo needs to go is the State Department's own entry site.