How to Take a Cambodia eVisa Photo on Your iPhone: A 5-Minute Guide for Americans

Step 2: Set up the wall, light, and distance

The setup is the part that decides whether the photo passes, and it takes about a minute. You need three things: a plain white wall, even daylight, and the right distance from the wall so you do not throw a shadow.

Find a plain white wall — interior paint is ideal, but a closed white door or a white sheet pinned flat works just as well. Stand about a foot and a half in front of it, not pressed against it. That gap matters: stand too close and the wall behind your head picks up a shadow that the validator reads as a non-uniform background, which is one of the most common flags on American photos.

For light, face a window where daylight comes in from the side, not directly behind you. Side daylight lights your face evenly and keeps the wall reading as true white. Mid-morning or mid-afternoon is the sweet spot. Avoid evenings, when warm indoor bulbs turn a white wall a faint yellow or cream — and a cream wall reads as off-white to the upload check. Never use the iPhone flash; it blows out your face and bounces a hard shadow onto the wall.

Last, get yourself camera-ready. Glasses off, even if you wear them every waking hour — any frames at all get rejected. No hat, no headphones, no AirPods. Tuck your hair behind your ears so your full face is visible from the top of your forehead to your chin. Keep your expression relaxed and neutral: eyes open, mouth closed, no smile. Americans are wired to smile for a camera, and a smile is the single most-flagged issue, so consciously let your face go flat.

Step 3: Take the photo the right way

Use the rear camera, not the selfie camera. The front camera is lower resolution and subtly distorts your features when held at arm's length, and the validator can catch that distortion. Hand the iPhone to someone else, or prop it on a shelf and use the timer or volume-button shutter. Hold or place it in portrait orientation, level with your eyes — not angled up from your chest or down from above.

Stand a few feet back so your head and the top of your shoulders fill the frame with a little headroom above. Look straight into the lens. Take five or six frames rather than one — small differences in expression and head angle add up, and you want options when you pick the keeper. Between frames, glance at the wall behind you on the screen: if you can see a shadow creeping in on one side, step forward or turn slightly toward the window.

Once you have your frames, open Photos and pick the one where your face is square to the camera, eyes open, expression neutral, and the wall behind is clean and even. That is your file. Do not run it through a filter, do not use the editing tools to brighten or smooth your skin, and do not crank the warmth — the validator looks for natural skin texture and true color, and heavily edited photos get bounced.

Step 4: Crop, convert HEIC to JPEG, and check the file

Now you turn the keeper into an upload-ready file. Three quick moves: crop it square, make sure it is a JPEG, and confirm it is under 2 MB.

Crop to a square

Open the photo in Photos, tap Edit, then the crop tool, and choose the square aspect ratio. Position your head centered with a little headroom above and your shoulders at the bottom edge. A square of at least 600×600 pixels is the safe target — an iPhone photo cropped this way clears that comfortably. Tap Done to save.

Convert HEIC to JPEG (if you skipped Step 1)

If you forgot to switch the Camera format and your photo is a HEIC, the simplest fix on the iPhone itself is to save it through the Files app: in Photos, tap Share, choose "Save to Files," and many iOS versions will offer a JPEG copy on save. The most reliable route is to open the photo, tap Share, and use "Copy Photo," then paste it into the Files app, which stores it as a JPEG. If that feels fiddly, emailing the photo to yourself often converts it to JPEG on the way, or you can use any free HEIC-to-JPEG converter. Whichever you use, confirm the saved file ends in .jpg before you upload.

Check the file size

A square iPhone JPEG is almost always well under the 2 MB ceiling, but it is worth a glance. If the file is somehow oversized, a light re-crop or saving a slightly smaller copy brings it down without visibly hurting quality. You do not need to chase a specific kilobyte count — anything under 2 MB is fine, and a clean square JPEG around a few hundred kilobytes is perfect.

Upload it and apply

That is the whole iPhone routine: change one setting, shoot against a white wall in daylight, crop square, make sure it is a JPEG under 2 MB. If your photo somehow still gets flagged, it is no drama — you re-upload a corrected version with free resubmission, and the clock keeps running. Our guide to fixing a rejected Cambodia eVisa photo walks through each flag, and if your file refuses to come down under the limit, the how-to-compress-an-oversized-photo guide covers that one cleanly.

With the photo sorted, the rest of the eVisa is light. Tourist eVisa is $80 USD all-in, Business eVisa is $90 USD all-in, both approved in 3 business days and delivered as a printable PDF by email, both with free resubmission if Immigration flags a correction, and both backed by US-timezone support. The photo and a scan of your passport bio page do most of the work — there is no return flight, hotel booking, or bank statement to upload.

Next steps and related reading for Americans: apply for your Cambodia eVisa once your iPhone photo is a clean JPEG, check the background rules for US applicants if you are unsure whether your wall reads as white, follow the full US step-by-step application guide to see every other field, and bookmark our Cambodia visa hub for US citizens as the single reference for cost, documents, and timing.