Cambodia eVisa Passport Bio Page Scan for Australians: 2026 Phone-Camera Guide

The second-most-common Aussie rejection — but the easiest to fix

After the passport photo, the bio-page scan is the next-biggest reason an Aussie eVisa application stalls. Roughly 8% of all rejections we see come down to the scan — laminate glare across the face, a corner cropped out, a low-resolution shot that turns the machine-readable zone into a blur. Compared with the 25% rejection rate on photos, that is genuinely small, but it is also the most avoidable mistake on the entire application. Five minutes on a phone in good daylight clears it in one go.

The bio page is the part of your Australian passport that has the photo on it — name, date of birth, passport number, issue and expiry dates, the MRZ (machine-readable zone) along the bottom. That is the page Cambodian Immigration needs to see; not the cover, not the visa-stamp pages, not the back endpaper. Sounds obvious, and the wrong-page mistake still accounts for about 1% of all scan rejections — usually someone scanning the cover by accident, or the inside front page with the embossed coat-of-arms but no biographical detail. The Cambodia eVisa documents required for Australians piece covers the full five-item checklist if you need the wider context. Our official Cambodia eVisa for Australians pulls all the pieces — cost, documents, processing — into one place.

This guide is the same internal playbook we use on the scan-QA desk. The five rules that decide whether a scan passes, a step-by-step phone walkthrough you can run through right now at your kitchen table, the common Aussie mistakes ranked by frequency, and the HEIC-to-JPEG fix iPhone users keep tripping over. A compliant scan is a five-minute job. When you are ready, the application takes about ten minutes online and three business days for approval. The Australian application walkthrough covers the full end-to-end, and the Do Australians need a Cambodia visa explainer is the right starting point if you have not begun yet.

The five rules of a passing passport scan

Cambodian Immigration's scan spec is shorter and gentler than the photo spec, but the validator still runs an automated read of every upload before a human looks at it. Five rules cover almost every flag. Get all five right and the scan goes through cleanly.

Rule one: both edges of the bio page must be fully in frame. Top, bottom, binding edge, outer edge — all four visible with a small margin of background around the passport. The most common scan rejection is a corner cropped off, usually the bottom-right where the MRZ ends. Leave a thumb-width of contrasting surface on every side.

Rule two: all text legible, including the MRZ. The machine-readable zone is the two lines of < character codes along the bottom of the bio page. Cambodian Immigration parses that zone to cross-check the name, date of birth, and passport number you typed into the application. Tap to focus on the MRZ before you shoot — modern phone cameras default focus to the centre of the frame, which is the photo on a passport, not the text.

Rule three: no glare on the laminate. The plastic film is glossy by design, and camera flash bounces straight off it into the lens. Avoid flash entirely. Use natural daylight from a side window, not directly overhead. If a bright reflection is still on the page in the preview, tilt the passport a few degrees to push it off to the side.

Rule four: JPEG file, under 2 MB. HEIC from iPhone is rejected at the upload stage. File size caps at 2 MB — a full-resolution phone shot at 10 MB will fail until you compress it. The Photos app on both iOS and Android exports at the right size and format from the share menu.

Rule five: resolution at least 1000×700 pixels, ideally 1500×1000 or larger. Modern phone cameras easily exceed that — a default iPhone or Pixel shot is usually 4000×3000 or higher. The risk is on the other end: if you crop too tight or compress too aggressively, you can land below the threshold. Leave the resolution generous.

Lighting and glare

The single biggest enemy of a clean scan is laminate glare — the bright reflective patch you see when light bounces off the plastic film into the camera lens. About 3% of all Aussie scan rejections trace to glare alone, the top single cause. The fix is geometry: daylight from a side window is far softer than an overhead ceiling light or desk lamp aimed straight down. If you still see a bright patch on the page in the preview, tilt the passport a few degrees until the reflection moves off entirely. Camera flash is the most reliable way to ruin the shot — switch it off.

Framing both edges

Hold the phone parallel to the open passport, directly above it, at about 30 cm. The viewfinder should show the full bio page with a clean margin of contrasting surface visible all the way around — top, bottom, both sides. The most common failure on this rule is the bottom-right corner being just outside the frame, taking the second line of the MRZ with it. If you are not sure, look at the preview and check you can see the page corners on all four sides before you take the shot.

File format and resolution

JPEG under 2 MB, at least 1000×700 pixels, ideally 1500×1000 or larger. On iPhone, share the photo through Mail or Files and pick 'Most Compatible' to force a JPEG instead of HEIC, or change the camera setting permanently (covered in the HEIC fix below). On Android, the Photos app exports JPEG by default. If the file is over 2 MB, save it again at 'Medium' quality. Do not crop tight to the page — leave a generous border. The validator handles its own downscale and trim.

The phone-camera walkthrough (5 minutes start to finish)

This is the routine the scan-QA desk recommends to every Aussie applicant who emails in asking how to do it themselves. Five minutes including the upload, no special equipment, works on any iPhone from the last six years or a modern Android.

Step one — open the camera app and turn off flash. On iPhone, tap the lightning-bolt icon and select 'Off'. On Android, tap the flash icon and switch it off. Auto-flash will fire in a dimly lit room and ruin the scan — you want it forced off, not on auto.

Step two — lay the passport flat on a contrasting surface. The Australian passport is dark navy, so a warm dark wooden desk, a black notebook, or a dark grey kitchen bench gives the validator strong edge contrast. (If your only surface is dark too, reverse the trick: put the passport on a sheet of plain white printer paper.)

Step three — open the passport to the bio page (photo + name + the two lines of < character codes at the bottom). Flatten both pages — push gently on the spine. If the passport is brand new and the spine is stiff, weigh the opposite page down with a small object out of frame.

Step four — position yourself near a window. Side daylight is the goal — mid-morning or mid-afternoon is best, late evening yellows everything. The window should be off to one side of the passport, not directly behind you or directly above the page.

Step five — bracket the camera about 30 cm above the passport, parallel to the page. Hold the phone steady with both hands. Make sure both edges of the bio page are in frame with a small border of surface visible around all four sides. Tap on the MRZ at the bottom of the page to lock focus and exposure on the text, not on the photo or the laminate.

Step six — take two or three shots. Move slightly between them, change the tilt by a few degrees if you saw any glare in the preview. Open the photos and zoom in on the MRZ — if you can read every < character clearly, the shot passes. Pick the sharpest of the takes.

Step seven — export and upload. On iPhone, share through Mail or Files and pick 'Most Compatible' for a JPEG. Android is JPEG by default. If the file is over 2 MB, save at Medium quality. Upload to the application form. Done.

The common Aussie scan mistakes

Across more than 50,000 Aussie bio-page uploads, the same handful of mistakes show up week after week. The good news: every one of them is a one-retake fix. Here is the ranked list of what we see most often.

• Laminate glare across the face or MRZ — about 3% of all Aussie scan rejections. Caused by camera flash or overhead light bouncing off the plastic film. Turn flash off, move to side daylight, tilt the passport a few degrees if needed.
• Partial crop, usually the bottom-right corner — about 2%. The MRZ runs all the way to the right edge of the page; over-tight framing cuts it. Pull back, leave a thumb-width margin on every side.
• Low resolution — about 2%. Caused by heavy cropping after the shot, or by sending a low-quality compressed copy. Keep the original phone resolution, do minimal cropping, save at Medium quality at the lowest.
• Wrong page entirely — about 1%. Usually the cover, the inside front page with the coat-of-arms but no detail, or one of the visa-stamp pages. The bio page is the one with your photo on it. Double-check before you upload.
• HEIC instead of JPEG — bundled into the resolution/format issues above. Default iPhone format is not accepted. Export as JPEG via the share menu, or change the camera setting permanently to 'Most Compatible'.
• Whole page washed out by direct overhead light — bundled into glare. Daylight from a side window is much softer than a ceiling downlight. Move to a window, not under a light.
• Photo on the bio page is blurred by motion — phones with image stabilisation handle this well, but a shaky hand at 30 cm can still smear text. Brace both elbows on the table, take three shots, pick the sharpest.

What to do if your iPhone produces HEIC

Modern iPhones default to saving photos in HEIC format, which is smaller and higher quality than JPEG — but Cambodian Immigration's upload validator does not accept it. The permanent fix takes thirty seconds: Settings > Camera > Formats > 'Most Compatible' instead of the default 'High Efficiency'. From that point on, every photo your iPhone takes is saved as a JPEG.

The one-off fix is faster but easy to forget. Take the scan in HEIC as normal, then share it through Mail, Files, or any third-party app, and select 'Most Compatible' or 'JPEG' in the export menu — or use a converter app like 'HEIC to JPG' to save a JPEG copy first. Android users do not have this problem; the Photos and camera apps both default to JPEG. The only Android gotcha is third-party camera apps that save in HEIF or WebP for size — double-check the export format before you upload.

Putting it together

Five rules, one phone, five minutes. The passport bio-page scan is one of the simpler steps in the Cambodia eVisa application, and it is the easiest of the common rejection causes to fix on a first retake. Flat surface, side daylight, no flash, both edges in frame, MRZ in focus, JPEG under 2 MB. That is the whole job. Almost 92% of Aussie phone-camera scans pass first time when you follow the routine. If you want the wider context, the Cambodia eVisa photo requirements piece covers the other big upload step, and the passport validity rules guide covers the 6-month and blank-page requirements that need to be sorted before you even start the scan.

If your application has already been flagged for a scan issue, do not start over — reply to the email with the corrected file and the processing clock restarts the moment the upload lands. The Cambodia eVisa rejected — what to do guide walks through the recovery path step by step. For Aussies who would rather skip the desktop step entirely and do the whole application from the phone, the mobile application step-by-step is the right starting point. The Smartraveller advisory is also worth a five-minute read for the current Cambodia travel context, and the Australian Passport Office is the canonical source for any AU-passport-side questions about renewals, replacements, or damaged passports.

Next steps and related reading for Australians: apply for your Cambodia eVisa when you are ready to lodge, bookmark our Cambodia visa hub for Australian citizens as the single canonical reference, skim the FAQ on Cambodia visa eligibility for quick answers, and use our glossary of Cambodia visa terms to decode any acronym in this guide.