Guides · 4 min read

Why was my passport photo rejected? 10 common reasons

Passport offices reject roughly 1 in 6 photos. Here are the top 10 reasons in 2026 — with the fix for each, based on the exact wording used by HMPO, the US State Department, the Questura and the Indian Passport Seva.

The top 10 rejection reasons

1. Shadow on the face — retake with soft, front-facing light from a window.
2. Shadow on the background — stand at least 40 cm from the wall.
3. Wrong background colour (white submitted where grey is required, or vice-versa).
4. Smiling or open mouth — retake with a neutral expression.
5. Glasses — remove them (or provide a medical exemption letter).
6. Hair covering the eyes or face oval.
7. Face too small or too large in the frame.
8. Head tilted or looking away from the lens.
9. Photo older than 6 months.
10. Low resolution or heavy compression artefacts.

How IDReady.ai prevents each of these

Every photo processed by IDReady.ai runs through automatic checks that mirror what passport offices verify: face bounding box, eye height, background uniformity, expression, glasses detection and print resolution. If any check fails, you get a free retake before you pay.