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How to take a baby passport photo at home.

Lay your baby on their back on a smooth, plain sheet in the colour your document asks for. Stand directly above, hold your phone parallel to the floor and shoot in soft daylight from a window — no flash. Keep hands, toys and the dummy out of the frame, get the whole head and both ears in the shot, and check the photo against your document's rules before you print or upload it.

What you need

  • A smooth, plain sheet in a colour your document accepts — white or off-white for a US passport, light grey or cream for a UK one. See every document.
  • A room with a large window and indirect daylight.
  • Your phone. A second adult helps — to catch your baby's attention, not to hold them.
  • Ten calm minutes, ideally after a feed and a nap.

Set up the sheet and the light

Spread the sheet on the floor or a firm bed and pull it flat: every crease throws a shadow, and a shadowed sheet reads as a patterned background. Set it up beside the window so daylight falls evenly across it, and switch off overhead lights — they tint a white sheet yellow and put shadows under the eyes.

The setup, seen from above: the baby on a sheet beside a window, the phone held flat over the faceWindowSoft daylightPlain sheetPhone, flat

Skip the flash. It flattens the face, makes skin shine and throws a hard shadow onto the sheet. If one side of the face comes out darker, turn the setup so the window is level with your baby's face, or bounce light back with a white towel held just outside the frame.

Position your baby

Lay your baby on their back in the middle of the sheet, head straight, both ears visible, shoulders level. Leave plenty of sheet around them — the crop needs room above the head and below the chin.

  • A plain top that contrasts with the sheet: a white bodysuit disappears into a white background.
  • No hat, headband or hair bow, and the dummy comes out.
  • Hair away from the eyes and off the face.

Shoot from directly above

  1. Stand over your baby — or kneel with one knee either side — with the lens over their face.
  2. Hold the phone flat, parallel to the floor. A tilted phone makes the chin look bigger than the forehead.
  3. Stay about an arm's length away. A phone a few centimetres from a face distorts it.
  4. Check that your own shadow isn't falling on the sheet, then take plenty of frames — you only need one.

The hard part is the glance. A baby looks up for about half a second, and a thumb on the shutter misses it. In the TotShot app a sound catches their attention and the phone takes the shot itself once the eyes, head angle and framing are right — so you can watch your baby instead of the screen.

Newborns and sleeping babies

Some documents accept closed eyes for a baby: the US passport (up to 12 months), the UK passport (under 1), the Italian passport (up to 5 months), the Polish passport (under 5), and the Brazilian passport (up to 1 month). The others want the eyes open at every age, even for a newborn, so shoot when your baby is fed, rested and alert — mornings often work best.

Lying on a sheet is the easiest position for a baby who can't sit up yet, and the US passport (up to 12 months), the UK passport (under 1), the Irish passport (up to 36 months), the New Zealand passport (under 1), the Brazilian passport (up to 1 month), and the Japanese passport (under 6) say in writing that a baby may be photographed lying down. The other documents don't mention it either way: what they check is the result — a straight-on portrait with a plain background and nothing else in the frame.

Why holding your baby up doesn't work

Holding a baby under the arms pushes the shoulders up to the ears and tips the head, and a hand or arm in the frame gets the photo refused — none of the documents we cover accept a visible support. Lying down solves both problems: the head rests straight, the shoulders stay level and nobody's hands are anywhere near the frame.

Common reasons a baby photo is refused

  • The head is too small in the frame. Only the Dutch passport publishes a smaller head size for children. Everywhere else, a newborn's head has to fill the adult size.
  • A shadow behind the head or under the chin.
  • A creased or patterned background, or the wrong colour for the document.
  • The head tilted or turned to one side.
  • A hand, toy, dummy or blanket edge in the frame.
  • Blur from movement.
  • The top of the head or the chin cropped off.
  • Closed eyes on a document that wants them open.
  • An edited photo — a cut-out background or smoothed skin. Authorities ask for the original; TotShot crops, sizes and balances the light, and evens out shadows on the sheet only where the rules allow it.

Print it or upload it

Some documents take an upload — a UK passport applied for online, for example — and many still want prints. The requirements table shows which, and how many. Print on photo paper at actual size: a printer set to "fit to page" changes the head size you just got right.

Check before you submit

Rules differ by document and by age, and a refused photo usually means another appointment. Before you print, run the photo through our free check — it measures the head, eye line, pose and light against your document's published rules — or shoot in the TotShot app, which checks every frame before you pay anything. Final acceptance is always the authority's decision.