US DV Lottery photo requirements and checklist

Face position and composition

Face the camera directly with your head centred. The full head—from the top of the hair to the bottom of the chin—must be visible. The State Department specifies that the head should occupy 50% to 69% of the image height. On a 600-pixel image, that is approximately 300 to 414 pixels from chin to the top of the head.

Keep your eyes open, use a neutral expression and avoid tilting or turning your head. The camera should be at eye level, with enough distance to avoid the stretched features that can result from a very close wide-angle phone photo.

Background, lighting and clothing

• Use a plain white or off-white background without texture, objects or visible lines.
• Light the face evenly. Avoid shadows on the face and on the wall behind the head.
• Wear normal daily clothing rather than a uniform, except religious clothing worn every day.
• Do not wear eyeglasses. Hearing devices or similar articles normally worn may remain.
• A religious head covering is permitted only when it does not obscure the face or cast shadows.

Editing rules: cropping is not retouching

You may crop a suitable original to the required square and resize it to 600 × 600 pixels. You must not digitally enhance or alter the image to change your appearance. Avoid beauty filters, skin smoothing, reshaping, removing or adding facial features, changing hair, combining multiple images or using AI to generate missing parts of the face.

Start with the correct real background whenever possible. Even when software can isolate a person, a synthetic-looking edge, altered hair or unnatural lighting can make the result unsuitable. Keep the original file so you can start again without repeatedly compressing an already processed image.

Every family member needs the correct photo

The entry must include recent photographs of the entrant, spouse and all qualifying children listed under the programme instructions. Do not reuse one person’s file for another person, upload a photo of a printed identity document or submit an old portrait merely because it passed a previous application.

For a baby, place the child on a plain white or off-white sheet or use a properly lit child seat covered by a plain sheet. No other person should be visible. The State Department allows some flexibility for an infant’s eyes, but the face must remain visible and the photo must still be a truthful recent image.

What a photo tool can and cannot do

A preparation tool can create the square crop, set the pixel dimensions and help keep the exported JPEG below the technical file-size limit. It cannot confirm identity, recency, family eligibility or final acceptance. The online DV entry system and the reviewing authority make that decision.

If the tool warns that the head is too small, too large or close to an edge, return to the crop rather than trying to distort the image. If the source photo is blurry, heavily shadowed or filtered, take a new photo.

Official sources and fraud warning

Read the US Department of State visa photo requirements and the programme-year instructions linked from the official Diversity Visa Program entry page. The official entry site uses a .gov address, and submitting a basic DV entry is not the same as paying a third party to prepare a photo.

This guide explains photo preparation only. It does not determine eligibility and is not affiliated with the US government.