How to take a Hong Kong SAR passport photo at home — and what makes it different from every other country's requirements
The HKSAR passport photo is one of the more distinctive in the world. The 40×50mm format is used by Hong Kong and almost nowhere else — which means that if you are renewing your HKSAR passport while living abroad, every local pharmacy or photo kiosk you walk into will hand you the wrong size. On top of that, the IMMD has specific rules about clothing colour, glasses, and distance that are different enough from US and UK standards to trip up anyone who has only ever prepared a Western-market passport photo before. The good news is that all of it is manageable at home, and none of it requires a studio appointment — you just need to know what to set up before you press the shutter.
The practical answer
Start with the basics. The photo must be 40mm wide and 50mm high — that is the printed size. For digital applications through the IMMD's online portal or mobile app, the file must be a JPEG of 1200×1600 pixels at a minimum (equivalent to scanning a print at 600 DPI), with a maximum file size of 5MB. The face from chin to crown must measure 32 to 36mm within that frame, with appropriate headroom above the crown. The background must be plain white — not off-white, not cream, not light grey. White specifically. Your expression should be neutral and natural. The IMMD does not explicitly prohibit a gentle closed-mouth smile, and some local studios say that a natural mild smile passes their compliance checker without issue. But anything that could be described as a grin, a wide smile, or an expression that noticeably changes the geometry of your cheeks and eyes is a risk. When in doubt, aim for the relaxed-but-not-smiling look: jaw slightly loose, lips together, eyes open and looking directly at the lens. Glasses are permitted — and this is one of the key differences from US, Australian, and New Zealand standards, which prohibit glasses entirely. But the conditions are strict. The lenses must be completely clear: no tint of any kind, no colour cast from blue-light coatings, no photochromic lenses that appear transparent indoors but still carry a residual tint. The frames must not obstruct any part of the eyes. And there must be absolutely no glare anywhere on the lenses. The no-glare requirement is the hardest one to guarantee at home. Even a small reflection that is barely visible at normal screen size can be flagged. High-prescription lenses and thick lenses are particularly prone to edge glare that appears only in the final crop. If you wear glasses and are not certain you can produce a glare-free shot, removing them is the safer choice. Your photo must have been taken recently — the IMMD requires a recent colour photograph, and while the official guidance does not specify an exact recency window the way UK (one month) or US (six months) rules do, submitting a photo from two or three years ago is a certain way to have the application returned.
Where people get surprised
The single biggest surprise for people taking a HKSAR passport photo outside of Hong Kong is the size. Everywhere else in the English-speaking world, passport photos are either 35×45mm (UK, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe) or 51×51mm square (US). Hong Kong's 40×50mm is neither. When you walk into a pharmacy in the United States or Canada and ask for a passport photo, you will get a 2×2 inch square. When you ask at a Boots in the UK, you will get 35×45mm. Neither is what the IMMD needs. The only way to get the right size outside Hong Kong is to specifically request it — or to prepare the file yourself with the correct dimensions and take it to a lab for printing. PassSnap handles this automatically when you select the HKSAR Passport photo type, but if you are using any other method, the size is the first thing to get right before anything else. The second surprise is the clothing rule. The IMMD explicitly states that you should not wear a pure white top — it blends with the white background and makes the shoulder line ambiguous in the final photo. But the guidance goes further than that: you also should not wear very dark or very light colours. The ideal is a solid-colour top with a proper collar, in a medium tone — navy, mid-grey, burgundy, a medium blue, something in that range. This is not a rule that the IMMD will spell out in a rejection letter that says "wrong shirt colour", but photos where the clothing and background create a confusing contrast zone are more likely to be returned for re-submission. Professional studios in Hong Kong consistently recommend solid-colour tops with collars in medium tones for exactly this reason. The third thing that catches people is the laser engraving implication. The IMMD uses laser engraving technology to transfer your photo onto the passport's data page. This means the quality and colour accuracy of the photo you submit has a direct effect on how the portrait looks in the finished document. A photo with uneven colour, incorrect white balance, or slightly washed-out skin tones will produce a passport portrait that looks off — not just rejected, but actually visible in the finished document if it passes at all. This is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to take the lighting seriously. Natural front-facing daylight produces the most accurate colour rendering. Overhead room lighting, which is usually warm tungsten or cool LED, creates a colour cast that can shift the portrait in ways you will not notice until you see the printed passport.
How PassSnap fits
PassSnap 2.0 includes a dedicated HKSAR Passport photo type that applies the 40×50mm crop and 1200×1600px digital export specifications automatically. The guided capture shows head-size feedback in real time, so you know whether the face is inside the 32–36mm chin-to-crown range before you take the shot. The optional AI verify step checks for glasses glare and tint — a specific check that matters for the Hong Kong market where glasses are permitted but must meet narrow optical conditions. No AI enhancement or retouching is applied to the official export, and no photo is uploaded to a server during the capture and export process.
Before you take the photo
Choose your clothing before you do anything else. A solid-colour top with a collar in a medium tone is what the IMMD's own guidance and Hong Kong photography studios consistently recommend. Think navy blue, medium grey, wine red, forest green — anything that provides clear contrast with a white background without going so dark or so bright that it dominates the frame. Avoid pure white (blends with the background), very light pastels (same problem), and very dark colours like black or very dark navy (they absorb light and make the shoulder area look like a cutout). A proper collar is worth wearing even if you do not normally wear one for photos — it defines the neckline in a way that reads cleanly in the final crop.
Set up your background and lighting before you touch the camera. You need a plain white wall or a flat white sheet hung behind you — not off-white, not cream. White specifically, because the IMMD requires a white background and the laser engraving process is calibrated for it. For lighting, face a window directly. The light should come from in front of you and slightly above eye level. Turn off any overhead ceiling lights — they create downward shadows under the chin and nose that show up clearly in the final print. Overcast daylight is ideal because it is diffuse and does not create hard shadows. Bright direct sunlight through a window is harder to work with — the contrast is too high.
Have someone else take the photo. The HKSAR Immigration Department does not accept selfies because wide-angle camera lenses at close range distort facial proportions in ways that affect biometric accuracy. The photo should be taken from approximately 1.2 to 2 metres away using the rear camera of a phone or a digital camera. If you genuinely cannot find anyone to help, a tripod with a self-timer is the next best option — but the critical thing is that the phone or camera must not be held at arm's length.
If you plan to wear glasses, test for glare before you commit to the session. Set up your full lighting arrangement, put on your glasses, and take a test shot from the shooting distance. Zoom into the lenses on the full-resolution image and look for any reflection — even a faint one at the edge of the lens. If you see glare, try adjusting your position relative to the light source. A slight turn of the head, a small shift in your distance from the window, or repositioning the camera angle can eliminate most glare. But if the glare persists — which it often does with high-prescription lenses or any blue-light coating — remove the glasses for the final shot. Glasses are permitted by the IMMD, but only if you can meet the no-glare condition, and that condition is harder to guarantee at home than in a professional studio with adjustable lighting.
Check the face height in the exported image before deciding the session is finished. The face from chin to crown must measure 32–36mm in the final 40×50mm print. That corresponds to roughly 77–87% of the 50mm frame height. If your face looks small — if there is a lot of headroom above the crown or you can see more than just the upper shoulders at the bottom — move closer to the camera and reshoot. This is the kind of error that is invisible on a phone preview and only visible when you open the full-resolution image on a larger screen or measure it directly.
FAQ
Can I take my own HKSAR passport photo with a selfie?
The IMMD does not accept selfies, and this is not a flexible rule. The reason is that phone cameras held at arm's length use a wide-angle focal length that introduces perspective distortion — the nose appears larger, the ears appear smaller, and the overall facial geometry is shifted in ways that affect biometric accuracy. The photo must be taken from approximately 1.2 to 2 metres away. If you are applying alone without anyone to help, the practical solution is to set up your phone on a tripod or a stable surface at eye level, use the self-timer, and stand at the correct distance. The important thing is that the phone is not being held in your hand close to your face when the shutter fires.
I wear glasses every day. Will they cause problems with my HKSAR passport photo?
They might, depending on the lenses. Hong Kong is one of the few passport-issuing authorities that still permits glasses in photos — the US, Australia, and New Zealand all prohibit them entirely. But the IMMD's conditions are narrow: the lenses must be completely clear (no tint, no colour cast from blue-light coatings, no photochromic residual), the frames must not cover any part of the eyes, and there must be no glare anywhere on the lenses. The glare condition is the hardest to meet at home. High-prescription lenses with significant thickness at the edges, and any lens with a blue-light coating that has a visible yellow or green tint, routinely fail even with careful lighting. The safest approach is to remove your glasses for the photo. If you want to try with glasses, do a full test shot with your intended lighting setup and zoom into the lens area on the full-resolution image before you commit.
I am in the United States (or UK, Canada, Australia) and I need a HKSAR passport photo. How do I get the right size?
The 40×50mm format is not a standard offering at most photo labs outside Hong Kong. If you walk into a pharmacy chain and ask for a passport photo, you will almost certainly get the wrong size for the country you happen to be in — 51×51mm in the US, 35×45mm in the UK or Australia. The options are: prepare the correctly sized digital file yourself and take it to a photo lab for printing as a standard photo-size print at the correct dimensions; use PassSnap, which includes the HKSAR Passport photo type and exports a file formatted to the correct specifications; or find a specialist photo studio in a city with a significant Cantonese-speaking population, which may stock the correct size. Of these, preparing the file yourself is the most reliable way to ensure the dimensions are right, because asking a lab to "print this at 40×50mm" requires them to confirm they can do it without scaling the image.