The exact Canada visa photo in pixels, KB and DPI for online uploads
When you submit a Canada visa application online, the portal reads three numbers from your file: pixel dimensions, file size in KB, and DPI. For Canada the required digital photo is 413 × 531 pixels at 300 DPI, with a file size of 60–240 KB on IRCC. Get any of those wrong and the portal silently rejects the upload — often without telling you which field failed.
The pixel size is not arbitrary: 413 × 531 px is the 300-DPI equivalent of the official printed size of 35 × 45 mm enforced by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and Service Canada. Submit a smaller pixel count (say 400 × 500) and the photo gets pixelated when Canada prints it onto your physical visa. Submit a larger pixel count (say 1200 × 1500) without resampling, and the file size balloons past the portal's KB limit.
How to hit 60–240 KB on IRCC every time
- Take the photo with a modern phone camera in 4:3 mode against a white wall.
- Open the Canada visa resizer. It auto-crops to 413 × 531 pixels at 300 DPI.
- If the output JPEG is still over the limit, drop it into our image compressor at 80–85% quality. The compressor preserves face detail while shrinking the file to any KB target.
- Upload the JPEG to the Canada portal. Confirm the success message — some portals show no preview, only a small "photo uploaded" tick.
Why JPEG and not PNG, WebP, or HEIC
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and Service Canada's online portal expects JPEG in sRGB color space because biometric face-detection libraries expect 8-bit JPEG. PNG produces lossless files but is often rejected as "wrong format". WebP and HEIC, the default formats on modern Android and iPhone, are universally rejected. Always convert to JPG before uploading.
DPI matters even for digital files
A common myth is that DPI only applies to print. Not true for Canada visa applications: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and Service Canada's portal reads the EXIF DPI metadata to verify the photo can be printed at 35 × 45 mm without pixelation. ImageGates writes 300 DPI metadata into every output file by default.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and Service Canada portal pitfalls
- Forgetting the guarantor's signature and date on the back of one print..
- Uploading a screenshot of a photo (loses DPI metadata, half the resolution).
- Cropping a 1200 × 1500 photo to 413 × 531 but forgetting to compress — the file ends up far above 60–240 KB on IRCC.