How to make visa documents fit India’s upload size limits
The Indian e-Visa form asks for a square JPEG photo of 10 KB to 1 MB and PDFs of 10 KB to 300 KB. To make a passport scan fit, open Compress PDF, choose Target size — for upload limits and enter a custom size a little under 300 KB. For the photo, use Resize photo in KB with equal width and height. Both run in your browser, so your passport stays on your device.
The official limits
From the Indian e-Visa page, checked November 2, 2026:
- Photo: JPEG, at least 10 KB and at most 1 MB. Height and width must be equal. The page also asks for a recent front-facing photo with a white background.
- Passport page: PDF of the photo page with your personal details, 10 KB to 300 KB.
- Other documents for business and medical visas: PDF, 10 KB to 300 KB.
The regular (paper) visa application has a different document upload page: PDF files of 10 KB to 500 KB. Its upload check counts 500 KB as 500,000 bytes.
The e-Visa page warns that an application may be rejected if the uploaded photo or documents aren’t clear, so don’t compress more than you need to. PDFReadyGo isn’t connected to the Government of India. Rules can change, so check the upload screen when you apply.
Make the passport PDF fit 300 KB
- Scan the photo page of your passport into a PDF, for example with Scan to PDF on your phone.
- Open Compress PDF and select Choose a PDF.
- Set the mode to Target size — for upload limits.
- Choose Custom and enter 290 in Custom size in KB. Aiming a little under the limit leaves room for portals that count sizes differently.
- Select Compress PDF →, check the new size, then Download result ↓.
In our test on November 2, 2026, a 1.90 MB one-page passport scan came out at 201.2 KB in Chrome and 198.8 KB in Safari on iPhone, with the pages saved as images at about 150 DPI. Open the result and zoom in on the machine-readable lines at the bottom of the page. If they are sharp, the file is ready.
For the regular visa’s 500 KB limit, pick the preset 500 KB instead.
Make the photo square and under 1 MB
- Open Resize photo in KB and select Choose a photo.
- Type 1000 in Maximum size in KB and 10 in Minimum size in KB.
- Type the same number in Width in pixels and Height in pixels, for example 600 and 600.
- Under If the shape changes, keep Crop to fill, from the center, so your face stays centered.
- Select Resize photo →, check the preview, and select Download result ↓.
Our test with a 12-megapixel portrait photo gave a 600 × 600 pixel JPG of 48.9 KB in Chrome and 88.7 KB in Safari. If the crop cuts off the top of your head, crop the photo to a square in your phone’s photo app first, then resize.
If the upload is refused
- The file is too large. Run the PDF again with a lower custom size, such as 250 KB.
- The file is too small. A file under 10 KB is usually too blurry anyway. Use a higher target or a better scan.
- Wrong format. The photo must be JPEG and the documents PDF. Resize photo in KB always saves JPG.
- Several pages are needed in one file. Combine them first with Merge PDF, then compress the merged file.