Ireland Passport Photo Maker

Ireland's Passport Online is a friendly system right up to the photo step, where it turns strict: a JPEG at least 715 × 951 pixels, your face filling most of the frame, against a plain light wall — and no selfies. We built this maker to turn a properly taken phone photo into exactly the file Passport Online asks for, in your browser, before you upload anything.

Ireland Passport Photo Maker

Add a recent photo taken by someone else (or on a timer) against a plain, light-coloured wall. Drag it inside the frame and use the zoom slider until your face fills most of the frame, from the top of your head down to mid-torso.

📷 Click to select your photo or drag & drop it here

Zoom Make my Ireland passport photo

Download ireland-passport-photo.jpg

Why Passport Online sends photos back

Most refusals are not about how you look. They are about the file and the framing. The digital photo for an Irish passport must be at least 715 × 951 pixels — bigger than many people expect — and it must be the original digital photo, in colour, taken within the last six months. Send in a small image pulled from a messaging app, or a scan of the print in your wallet, and the system turns it away before a person ever sees it.

This maker works to the real numbers. It exports your photo at 1072 × 1426 pixels, safely above the 715 × 951 minimum, as a JPEG kept under the 9 MB ceiling. What it does not do is change your face: no filters, no smoothing, no retouching — the Passport Service bans digitally altered photos, and so do we. It crops and sizes the file, nothing more.

The official Ireland passport photo rules

These are the numbers in the Passport Service photo guidelines. The digital rules below are for Passport Online, which is how most applications are made now. The paper form still exists, and it works to printed sizes instead — those are in the second column.

How to make your Ireland passport photo

1. Find a plain, light-coloured wall — light grey, white or cream — in a room with good daylight, so there are no shadows on your face or on the wall behind you.
2. Hand the phone to someone else, or set it on a tripod or shelf about a metre and a half away and use the self-timer. An arm's-length selfie does not count.
3. Stand tall and face the camera squarely, eyes open and looking at the lens, mouth closed. Keep your whole head and your torso down to the middle in the shot.
4. Add the photo above and drag it inside the frame. Zoom until your face fills most of the frame — around 70 to 80 percent — with your head near the top and mid-torso at the bottom.
5. Press the button. The maker exports a 1072 × 1426 JPG and confirms the file is under 9 MB. Download it, and upload that file in Passport Online.

Why Ireland passport photos get refused

When a photo is refused, it is almost always one of these:

• Too small. Under 715 × 951 pixels the file is refused outright. A photo saved from a social app or a chat is usually far below this — always work from the original in your camera roll.
• A scanned print. The guidelines refuse scanned copies of printed photos, and a photograph taken of a print fails the same way. Upload a digital original.
• A selfie. Arm's-length photos stretch your features and almost never frame you from head to mid-torso. The guidelines rule them out by name.
• Filters and beauty mode. The photo must not be digitally altered. Beauty mode is alteration — switch it off, along with portrait-mode background blur, and take the photo plainly.
• The wrong background. Patterns, furniture, other people, or a dark wall behind you all cause refusals. Plain and light is the rule: light grey, white or cream.
• Face too small in the frame. A full-length or waist-up shot leaves your face well under the 70 to 80 percent the guidelines ask for. Come closer, or crop closer here.
• Glasses problems. Clear glasses are allowed only while your eyes stay fully visible. Frames over the eyes, glare on the lenses, and sunglasses all fail.

The no-selfie rule, explained kindly

This rule surprises people, so it is worth a plain explanation. A passport photo has to match your face as a border officer sees it. A selfie is taken from about 30 centimetres away, and at that distance a camera makes the middle of your face look bigger and the edges narrower than they really are. It also tends to catch you from slightly above or below, and it almost never shows you square-on from head to mid-torso.

None of that is a judgement on how you take photos. It is just geometry. The fix is easy: prop the phone at eye level roughly a metre and a half away, set a ten-second timer, and stand against the wall — or simply ask whoever is in the house to take it. That is the photo this maker is built to size.

Before you upload: the official word

This maker follows the Passport Service photo guidelines as published, and we keep the page in line with them. Still, the guidelines themselves are the final word, and final acceptance is always the Passport Service's decision, not any tool's. If anything about your photo is unusual — a head covering worn for religious or medical reasons, a baby who will not sit still, glasses you cannot remove — read the official guidance first: the Passport Service photo guidelines on ireland.ie. Your photo is checked against those rules, so they are worth the two minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions