Compress Passport Photo to 20KB
Most online passport, visa and exam forms reject a photo that is over 20 KB, and a phone selfie is usually 2–5 MB. Drop your photo here, pick the pixel size the form asks for, and download a JPG at or under 20 KB. Everything runs in your browser: your face never gets uploaded to a server, which is exactly how an ID photo should be handled.
Settings
Fixed sizes are center-cropped to the right shape, so frame your head in the middle of the shot. Use “Min file size” when a form says something like “between 10 KB and 20 KB”. Output is always JPG, the format almost every form accepts.
How it gets a passport photo under 20 KB
The tool crops your photo to the shape you chose, resizes it to the exact pixel size, then binary-searches JPG quality to find the highest quality that still fits under your KB limit. You get the sharpest file the limit allows, not a random low-quality export. If even the lowest sensible quality is still too big, it steps the pixel size down and tells you, because some forms check dimensions too.
Why most passport photos fail the 20 KB limit
The problem is almost never the quality setting. It is the pixel count. A 12-megapixel phone photo has about 55 times more pixels than a 413 × 531 passport photo, so squeezing it to 20 KB at full size turns it into mush. Resize first, then compress. At 413 × 531 px, a well-lit photo on a plain background usually lands around 20 KB at a quality that still looks clean.
- Plain, light background: flat walls compress far better than a busy room behind you.
- Even lighting: grainy, dim photos carry noise, and noise eats kilobytes.
- Right size before compressing: don’t upload 4000 px when the form wants 413 px.
Which size should I pick?
35 × 45 mm is the standard passport and visa photo shape in the UK, EU, Pakistan, India and many other countries. 2 × 2 inch (600 × 600 px) is the US passport and visa format. If the form lists exact pixels, like 200 × 230 px, choose Custom and type them in. Always check the official form’s rules; this tool handles file size and pixels, not face position or background rules.
FAQ
Is my photo uploaded anywhere? No. It is processed with your browser’s Canvas API and never leaves your device. Nothing is stored.
Will it be exactly 20 KB? It aims for the highest quality at or under your limit, so expect something like 17–20 KB. If you set a minimum, the result is flagged when it lands below it.
The form says 10 KB to 20 KB. What do I set? Max 20, min 10. If a tiny photo comes out under 10 KB even at top quality, pick a larger pixel size.
Does it fix the background or face position? No. It only crops from the center, resizes and compresses. Retake the photo if the background or framing breaks the form’s rules.
Is EXIF data kept? No. Re-encoding strips EXIF and GPS data, which is what you want for an ID photo.