DV Lottery Photo Requirements (And How to Not Get DQ'd)

The Diversity Visa (Green Card) Lottery photo has to be exactly 600 by 600 pixels, saved as a JPEG under 240 KB, taken within the last 6 months, on a plain white or off-white background with a neutral expression and no glasses. Miss any of those and the online entry form either blocks you or, worse, accepts a bad photo that gets your entry thrown out later. You get one entry per year, so the photo carries the whole entry.

That last point is what makes the DV Lottery different from a normal passport photo. A bad passport photo costs you a reprint. A bad DV photo, or an altered or reused one, can make your entire entry ineligible with no appeal and no second try until next year's window.

What are the exact DV Lottery photo requirements?

The photo must be a square color image, exactly 600 by 600 pixels, saved as a JPEG (.jpg) file of 240 KB or less, taken within the last 6 months. Those are the four numbers the State Department's DV entry site enforces on upload. Everything else is about the picture inside those pixels.

Here is the full spec in one place:

Requirement	The rule	Common failure
Dimensions	Exactly 600 x 600 px, square	Rectangular crop, or resized below 600 px
File	JPEG (.jpg), 240 KB or less	PNG, HEIC, or a file over the byte cap
Recency	Taken within the last 6 months	Reusing an old or prior-year photo
Background	Plain white or off-white	Textured wall, shadow, or a colored backdrop
Head size	Head fills 50% to 69% of image height	Standing too far back or too close
Expression	Neutral, both eyes open, mouth closed	Smiling, squinting, or half-turned
Glasses	Not allowed	Any eyewear, even thin frames
Head covering	None, except for religious reasons	Hats, headbands, decorative wraps
Color	Full color, natural skin tones	Black and white, or a heavy filter

The head-size rule is the one people underestimate. The Department of State specifies the head fill as an exact proportion of the frame, which is why "it looks about right" is a bad way to judge it. On a 600 px image, that 50% to 69% band works out to a head roughly 300 to 414 pixels tall. That is a measurement, and it is the kind of thing you want to check rather than eyeball.

Glasses have been off the table since 1 November 2016, the same date the ban took effect for US visa photos. If you wear glasses every day, take them off for the shot. There is no medical exception for the DV photo.

Can I reuse my photo from last year's entry?

No. The photo has to be taken within the last 6 months, and reusing an image from a previous entry is treated as a serious problem in its own right. The State Department has disqualified entries specifically for submitting a photo that was used in a prior year's Diversity Visa entry.

This trips up people who assume they look the same as last October. The rule exists to prove the photo is current, and a recycled file fails that test on its face regardless of how you look. Take a new photo every single year, even for the same person, even if nothing about you has changed.

The same logic applies to family. If you list a spouse and children on your entry, every person needs their own compliant photo taken within the last 6 months. One missing or non-compliant photo in the group can sink the entry for everyone on it.

What DV Lottery photo mistakes get an entry disqualified?

The single most disqualifying mistake is editing the photo. The DV rules require an accurate, unaltered image, and retouching, background replacement, or filters can void the entry outright. Beyond editing, here are the errors that most often void entries or get flagged at the later interview stage:

• Editing or enhancing the image. Smoothing skin, whitening the background in Photoshop, or running a "passport photo" app that composites a fake white backdrop. This is the big one. See can you edit a passport photo for why any alteration is a risk with government photos.
• Reusing an old photo. Covered above, and worth repeating because it is common and fatal.
• Wrong pixel dimensions or file size. Not exactly 600 x 600, or a JPEG over 240 KB. The form usually catches this, but people work around it by over-compressing until the face is muddy.
• A background that is not plain and even. A wall that looks white to your eye often carries a shadow or a color cast the camera records. The background must be plain white or off-white with no shadows.
• Glasses, hats, or a non-neutral expression. Smiling is the sneaky one. A neutral face is required, and a wide smile can get the photo rejected.
• Head too big or too small in the frame. Outside the 50% to 69% band.

Notice the pattern. Almost every fatal mistake is a measurement or a background problem, and the "fix" people reach for (an editor or an AI beautifier) is itself one of the disqualifying moves. This is the trap: the DV photo is one of the few images in your life where making it look nicer makes it more likely to fail. The reasons photos get bounced are worth understanding in full, and why passport photos get rejected breaks the failure modes down.

How do I get a compliant DV photo without editing it?

Get it right on camera, then measure it against the spec before you upload. Because you cannot edit your way to compliance, the only safe path is to control the shot: even, front lighting; a genuinely plain white or off-white wall; the camera at eye level about arm's length away; a neutral expression; no glasses. Then verify the numbers.

That verification step is where a tool helps, because the failures are numeric. Head height in pixels, eye position, head angle, background evenness, and the 600 x 600 / 240 KB export are all things you can check precisely instead of hoping.

Passport & Visa Photo, a Steradian Labs iPhone app, measures your DV Lottery photo against the State Department's published rules (head height in pixels, eye line, head angle, background evenness) and shows your measured number beside the required range, and it edits nothing: no AI, no background replacement, no retouching, so nothing it does can void your entry. It has a Diversity Visa Lottery preset that exports exactly 600 by 600 pixels and auto-fits the file under the 240 KB cap, and a Wall Check that grades an empty wall for plainness and shadow before you even take the shot. There is an optional opt-in Green Card Lottery alert, a push notification for when the annual entry window opens, so you are not scrambling on the last day.

Everything runs on the phone with Apple's Vision framework. The photo never leaves the device, there is no account, and there is no upload, which matters for an image tied to a government submission.

When does the DV Lottery entry window open?

The entry window for the Diversity Visa program typically opens in early October and stays open for about a month, though the exact dates are set each year by the State Department. Entries are only accepted electronically at dvprogram.state.gov during that window, and there is no late submission and no paper option.

Because the window is short and the photo is the part that most often fails on upload, the winning move is to have a compliant photo ready before October, not to take one at the last minute. Roughly one entry per person per year is all you get, and duplicate entries by the same person are themselves grounds for disqualification.

Your DV Lottery photo checklist

Run this before you upload, in order:

1. Taken in the last 6 months. New photo every year, no exceptions, one per person on the entry.
2. Exactly 600 x 600 pixels. Square, in color.
3. JPEG under 240 KB. Not PNG, not HEIC, not over the byte cap.
4. Plain white or off-white background. No shadow, no texture, no color cast.
5. Head fills 50% to 69% of the height. Measure it, do not guess.
6. Neutral expression, both eyes open, mouth closed. No smile.
7. No glasses, no hat. Religious head coverings are the only exception.
8. Zero editing. No retouching, no filter, no fake background. If it needs an editor to pass, reshoot it instead.

The DV Lottery gives you one shot a year and no margin for a sloppy photo. Get the shot right on camera, measure it against the numbers, upload it clean, and the photo stops being the thing that ends your entry.