How to Take a Baby Passport Photo at Home (2026)

You don't need a studio or a trip to the pharmacy to get your baby's passport photo — you need a white sheet, a window, and a couple of minutes. Here's exactly how to take a baby passport photo at home that passes, and the two rules that trip most parents up.

The short version: lay your baby on a plain white sheet, light them softly, shoot from directly above, and take plenty of frames. For infants under 1, closed eyes are fine — so a sleeping baby is one of the easiest photos to get right.

What you need

• A plain white or off-white sheet or blanket (no patterns)
• A room with soft, indirect daylight — near a window is ideal
• A phone or camera, with portrait mode and any beauty filter turned off

Step by step

1. Set up a plain white background

Smooth out a white sheet on the floor, a bed, or inside a car seat. The background has to be plain and shadow-free — patterns, a coloured wall, or a wrinkled sheet are common rejection reasons.

2. Lay your baby down

Place your baby on their back on the sheet. If they can't hold their head up, a car seat reclined with a white blanket behind them works too. Keep everything else — your hands, straps, toys, pacifiers — out of the frame.

3. Get the lighting soft and even

Position your baby near a window with indirect daylight. Even light with no hard shadow behind the head is what you're after. Avoid direct sunlight, a single overhead lamp, or flash — all of them cast shadows that fail the check.

4. Shoot from directly above

Hold your phone parallel to your baby's face, directly overhead, and fill the frame with their head and shoulders. Shooting straight-on keeps the head the right size and shape — angling the camera distorts it.

5. Check the eyes and expression

Here's the part that surprises parents: for babies under 1, the eyes can be open or closed, and they don't have to look straight at the camera. Keep the expression calm and neutral, though: a relaxed mouth (closed or only slightly parted) is fine, but avoid a smile, laugh, or cry, which can get the photo rejected. (For toddlers over 1, the eyes do need to be open. Our toddler and child passport photo guide covers exactly what changes, or go straight to the toddler passport photo tool.)

6. Take plenty — then pick your best

Babies move. Take a dozen frames so you have options, then choose the one where the face is clear, front-on, and unobstructed.

The mistakes that get baby photos rejected

• Something in the frame — a steadying hand, a car-seat strap, a pacifier, or a toy
• A background that isn't plain — shadows, patterns, or a cream wall that photographs beige
• Filters and edits — portrait mode, "beauty" smoothing, or an AI app. Modern phones apply smoothing by default, and it's auto-rejected under the 2026 rules
• Wrong head size — shooting from too far away or at an angle

Then verify it before you submit

Getting the photo is half the job — it still has to meet the exact size, head-height, and background spec (see the full baby passport photo requirements). Rather than guess and risk a rejection, you can check your best shot against every rule and get a submission-ready file from our baby passport photo tool. You take the photo; we verify it and prepare the correct file — we never alter your baby's face. If something's off, we tell you exactly what to reshoot.

If your baby is a newborn who won't hold still even for this, our newborn passport photo rules and tips guide has a few more tricks specific to that stage.