The exact China visa photo in pixels, KB and DPI for online uploads
When you submit a China visa application online, the portal reads three numbers from your file: pixel dimensions, file size in KB, and DPI. For China the required digital photo is 390 × 567 pixels at 300 DPI, with a file size of 40–120 KB on China online visa. 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: 390 × 567 px is the 300-DPI equivalent of the official printed size of 33 × 48 mm enforced by National Immigration Administration of the People's Republic of China (国家移民管理局, NIA), with day-to-day issuance handled by the Exit-Entry Administration of the local Public Security Bureau (公安局出入境管理局, PSB). Submit a smaller pixel count (say 400 × 500) and the photo gets pixelated when China 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 40–120 KB on China online visa every time
- Take the photo with a modern phone camera in 4:3 mode against a white wall.
- Open the China visa resizer. It auto-crops to 390 × 567 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 China portal. Confirm the success message — some portals show no preview, only a small "photo uploaded" tick.
Why JPEG and not PNG, WebP, or HEIC
National Immigration Administration of the People's Republic of China (国家移民管理局, NIA), with day-to-day issuance handled by the Exit-Entry Administration of the local Public Security Bureau (公安局出入境管理局, PSB)'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 China visa applications: National Immigration Administration of the People's Republic of China (国家移民管理局, NIA), with day-to-day issuance handled by the Exit-Entry Administration of the local Public Security Bureau (公安局出入境管理局, PSB)'s portal reads the EXIF DPI metadata to verify the photo can be printed at 33 × 48 mm without pixelation. ImageGates writes 300 DPI metadata into every output file by default.
National Immigration Administration of the People's Republic of China (国家移民管理局, NIA), with day-to-day issuance handled by the Exit-Entry Administration of the local Public Security Bureau (公安局出入境管理局, PSB) portal pitfalls
- Submitting a 35×45 mm European-style photo — the 2 mm width and 3 mm height difference is enough to trigger automatic rejection at the PSB and CVASC..
- Uploading a screenshot of a photo (loses DPI metadata, half the resolution).
- Cropping a 1200 × 1500 photo to 390 × 567 but forgetting to compress — the file ends up far above 40–120 KB on China online visa.