Schengen Visa: Photo and Dossier Requirements
What the Schengen visa application actually wants for your photo and your supporting-documents PDF, and the two size limits that trip people up most.
A Schengen visa application needs two separate things prepared correctly: a biometric-style photo (35×45mm, plain light background, neutral expression) under roughly 240KB, and a combined PDF of your supporting documents under about 2MB. Missing either limit is one of the most common reasons an online submission gets bounced back before a human even reviews it.
The photo
Schengen photo rules follow the same biometric standard used across most EU/Schengen consulates: 35×45mm, recent (within 6 months), plain white or very light background, neutral expression, no glasses glare, no head covering unless for religious reasons (and even then, your full face must be visible from chin to forehead). One detail people often miss: your head should fill roughly 70-80% of the photo's height — a common rejection reason is a photo that's technically the right dimensions but framed too far back, with too much empty space above the head. Use an ID photo tool that crops to the exact 35×45mm size, shows a head-alignment guide, and lets you compress under the portal's stated KB limit at the same time.
The dossier PDF
Most Schengen consulate portals want your supporting documents (bank statements, hotel bookings, itinerary, insurance) merged into a single PDF, not submitted as separate files — and that combined PDF usually needs to stay under about 2MB. If your merged file comes out bigger:
A mistake that costs people a resubmission
Compressing each supporting document separately, then merging them, sometimes leaves you slightly over the limit again once combined — because merging doesn't shrink anything, it just adds file sizes together. Merge first, then compress the combined file if it's still over the limit, not the other way around.
Check before you submit
Consulate size limits and exact requirements vary by country and can change, so treat the numbers here as a strong starting point, not an official guarantee — always confirm against your specific consulate's current instructions if there's any doubt, and run the finished files through a file checker as a last sanity pass.
Everything here runs in your browser — your documents are never uploaded anywhere during compression.