DV Lottery Photo Requirements: The Rules and the Mistakes That Disqualify Entries

Short answer: your DV lottery photo must be a JPEG, exactly 600 x 600 pixels, 240 kB or smaller, taken in the last six months, in colour, against a plain white or off-white background, facing the camera with a neutral face and no glasses. A wrong photo can disqualify your entry, even if you are selected.

The official photo rules

• File: JPEG (.jpg), square, 600 x 600 pixels, no more than 240 kB.
• Recent: taken within the last six months, showing how you look now.
• Background: plain white or off-white.
• Face: full face, looking straight at the camera, neutral expression, both eyes open.
• Clothing: what you normally wear. No uniforms (except religious clothing worn daily).
• Head covering: only if worn daily for religious reasons, with your full face visible and no shadows.
• No glasses, no headphones or earpieces.
• No copies of photos from ID cards or licences, and no full-length photos.

Scanning a printed photo? It must be 2 x 2 inches (51 x 51 mm) and scanned at 300 pixels per inch.

Mistakes that disqualify entries

1. Reusing last year's photo. The State Department says this makes you ineligible.
2. Beauty filters or editing. Phone camera "beauty" modes and studio retouching change your face. Use the plain camera.
3. Glasses, even clear ones.
4. A coloured, patterned or shadowed background, like a curtain or wall paint.
5. Selfies held too close, which distort the face. Ask someone to take it from about 1 to 1.5 metres away.
6. Smiling with teeth, tilted heads or hair covering the face.
7. Using another person's photo for your spouse or child, or an old photo of a child. Each person needs a recent photo of their own.

Getting the size right

The State Department has a free photo tool on travel.state.gov that crops your photo to the right size. Check the file is under 240 kB before you upload. You do not need to pay anyone to "validate" your photo.

Next: how to enter the DV lottery yourself.