Australia Visa Photo Size

Visa photos for Australia are set by the Department of Home Affairs, not by the passport office, so the rules come from a different place than those for Australian passports. Its photograph requirements are short: a recent passport photograph of 45 mm × 35 mm, showing the head and shoulders only, with the person facing the camera against a plain background. The photo must be less than six months old, and the name of the person goes on the back.

The visa forms repeat the same size. The Form 47SV application, for example, asks for two recent passport-sized photographs of 45 mm × 35 mm of each person included, and four of each if health examinations have not been completed. Other forms ask for different numbers, so always check the form or document checklist for your visa subclass.

Many visas are now applied for online through ImmiAccount, where photos and documents are uploaded rather than posted. The requirements above still describe what the photo must show; follow the upload instructions in your application for the file itself, and keep a printed copy in case a paper form or an interview asks for one.

Three Australian documents use photos, and each has its own source. Visa photos follow Home Affairs, as above. Australian passports follow the Australian Passport Office, which allows a range of 35 to 40 mm wide by 45 to 50 mm high on a white or light gray background. Citizenship applications, also handled by Home Affairs, use forms such as Form 1195, which describe the same 35–40 by 45–50 mm range with the face 32 to 36 mm from chin to crown.

Where the rules overlap, one photo can serve: a 35 × 45 mm print is exactly the visa size and sits inside the passport and citizenship ranges. The table below shows the Australian passport figures next to three other common documents, so you can see how they compare; the visa rule itself is the 45 × 35 mm in the panel above.

This page starts with the Australia passport & visa — 35×45 mm entry, which crops to a portrait 35 mm wide and 45 mm tall at 300 dpi and shows a guide for placing your head. Take the photo against a plain, light wall in even daylight, with your face straight to the camera and your shoulders in the frame, since Home Affairs asks for head and shoulders rather than a tight crop of the face.

The background is kept as you photographed it. Home Affairs citizenship forms ask for unedited photos and mention background removal explicitly, and although the visa help text does not go into that detail, an unedited photo is the safer choice for any government document. If your wall is not plain, move rather than editing the picture afterwards.

For paper applications, print the photo on photo paper at actual size. Under Advanced settings you can place several copies on one 4 × 6 in or A4 sheet with cut lines, which suits forms asking for two or four photos per person. Then print the person's name on the back of each copy, as Home Affairs asks. For other countries' photos, the Passport Photo Maker page lists every document in the tool, and Indian passport photo size covers India's rules.

Rules change, and visa subclasses differ. These are the official pages this page was written from: