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Compress a US Visa Photo to Under 240 KB

The DS-160 form rejects photos over 240 KB, and that is the limit people hit — a phone photo is usually 2–5 MB. Set the target to 240 KB and the tool will find the highest quality that fits. But size is only one of the rules the form enforces, and the others are easier to get wrong: the image must be square, it must be JPEG, and your head must occupy 50–69% of the height. Read the table below before you upload anything.

US visa photo requirements (official)

File size240 KB or less
DimensionsSquare — 600 × 600 to 1200 × 1200 pixels
File formatJPEG only
Compression ratio20:1 or lower
BackgroundPlain white or off-white
Head height1 in to 1⅜ in (22–35 mm) — 50% to 69% of the image height, chin to top of head
If you scan a print2 × 2 in (51 × 51 mm), scanned at 300 pixels per inch
Diversity Visa (DV) entryExactly 600 × 600 pixels, JPEG, 240 KB or less

Source: U.S. Department of State — Digital Image Requirements

Drop an image here, or click to browse

JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF or BMP · one image at a time

Target size: 240 KB

Your image never leaves your device — all compression happens locally in your browser.

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How to use

  1. Check the table below — especially that your photo is square and correctly framed.
  2. Leave the target at 240 KB, or lower it if you want margin.
  3. Drop your photo in and let the tool compress it.
  4. If the result is WebP, convert it to JPEG and re-check the size.
  5. Upload the file to your DS-160 form.

Frequently asked questions

Why 240 KB?
That is the ceiling the Department of State sets for the digital image on a DS-160: 240 kB or less, JPEG, square, between 600 × 600 and 1200 × 1200 pixels, with a compression ratio no worse than 20:1. It is published in the Digital Image Requirements page linked above, not a rule invented by photo shops.
Can I use this tool for the Diversity Visa lottery?
For the file size, yes — DV entries also cap the image at 240 KB in JPEG. But DV is stricter on dimensions: it requires exactly 600 × 600 pixels, not a range. Compressing will not resize your photo to exactly 600 × 600, so crop or resize it to that square first, then compress.
My photo is square and under 240 KB but the form still rejects it. Why?
The usual causes are head size and format. The head — chin to the top of the hair — must be 50% to 69% of the image height; too much background above the head is the most common framing failure. And if you compressed with a tool that output WebP, the form will reject it regardless of size, because it requires JPEG.
Will compressing damage the photo?
At 240 KB from a typical phone photo, you are discarding a lot of data, but the tool stops at the highest quality that fits rather than the smallest file it can make, and it also refuses to drop dimensions unless quality alone cannot reach the ceiling. For a 600 × 600 crop the visible difference is normally nil — there is very little detail to lose at that size.
Is my passport or visa photo uploaded?
No. Nothing leaves your browser. That matters here more than in most tools: this is an identity document, and the tool is built so that the file never touches a server.

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