Compress photo for US visa DS-160
US State Department requires photos between 600×600 px and 1200×1200 px, JPEG, under 240 KB.
Your images stay on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
The DS-160 online non-immigrant visa application and DS-260 immigrant visa application enforce the same photo requirements: square JPEG, between 600×600 px and 1200×1200 px, under 240 KB. Photos outside this envelope get rejected by the online form.
The defaults below produce a JPEG at quality 75 with a 900 px square cap — safely under 240 KB while comfortably above the minimum resolution.
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Frequently asked questions
- What size should an image be for US visa DS-160 application?
- US visa DS-160 application typically caps individual image uploads at 240 KB. The preset on this page is tuned to land at or under 240 KB while keeping the image sharp enough for the form or profile it's going into.
- Why is US visa DS-160 application so strict about image size?
- Government and platform forms enforce hard byte limits to control server-side storage costs and processing time. Uploading anything over the cap fails the form immediately, so hitting the target reliably matters more than a perfect quality-per-byte ratio.
- Is my image uploaded anywhere?
- No — compression runs in your browser. That matters for US visa DS-160 application because the source images (passport photo, ID scan, signature) are sensitive by definition. Nothing touches our servers.
- Do I need to resize, or just compress?
- Both. The preset applies a dimension cap (usually matching what US visa DS-160 application expects) and a quality reduction. Cropping to the exact required aspect ratio (e.g. passport photo) should be done first with the crop tool if the source is landscape or otherwise misaligned.
- Will the compressed image still be accepted?
- Yes — the preset targets slightly under the platform's declared cap, so submissions typically go through cleanly. Print quality won't match a raw camera export, but is well within what US visa DS-160 application verification requires.
Prepare your image for US visa photo (DS-160).
Drop your image — quality and dimension defaults tuned for US visa photo (DS-160). Runs locally.
Start compressing