Cambodia eVisa Photo Rejected? The 9 Reasons US Applications Get Flagged (and Fixes)

Too bright or overexposed — the sleeper flag

Overexposure is the one that surprises Americans, because the photo can look perfectly fine on your phone screen. What happens is simple: you stand facing a bright window, or you fire the camera flash, and the light hitting your face overwhelms the sensor. Highlights on your forehead, nose, and cheeks blow out to pure white, and the upload check reads those white patches as missing facial detail. It comes back with a "face not clear" or "overexposed" flag even though the framing was right.

The fix is about direction, not brightness. You want even, indirect daylight, and you want it coming from the side or front rather than from behind the camera. Stand parallel to a window so the light rakes across your face evenly, not pointed straight at it. Never shoot with your back to a bright window — that backlights you, fools the camera into darkening your face, and washes the white wall behind you into a glare. And turn the flash off completely; on-camera flash bounces straight back off your skin and is one of the most reliable ways to overexpose a passport photo.

If the daylight is genuinely harsh — a bright midday sun straight through a south-facing window — soften it. Pull a sheer curtain across the glass, or step back a few feet from the window so the light spreads out before it reaches you. Mid-morning or mid-afternoon light is gentler than noon. After you shoot, glance at the photo: if you cannot see the natural texture and shading of your skin, if your face looks flat and paper-white, it is overexposed and the validator will say so. Reshoot before you upload rather than after the flag comes back.

The iPhone HEIC trap and other file-format flags

The most common file-format rejection on American applications has nothing to do with how the photo looks — it is the file type. Recent iPhones save photos as HEIC by default, a format the Cambodia eVisa form does not accept. The photo can be perfect: white background, neutral face, good light. The form still bounces it because the file extension is wrong.

There are two clean fixes. Before you shoot, open Settings, go to Camera, then Formats, and choose "Most Compatible" — your iPhone will save JPEGs from that point on. If you already took the photo as HEIC, convert it after the fact: open it in the Photos app, and either share it through a route that exports JPEG, or use the Files app to duplicate and convert. Android phones generally save JPEG out of the box, so this is rarely an Android problem.

Two more format flags catch US applicants. A screenshot saved as a PNG gets rejected — screenshots are PNG by default, so never screenshot a photo to crop it; crop the original instead. And a file over 2 MB is rejected for size, which a full-resolution phone photo can easily exceed. A square crop usually brings it under the ceiling, but if it does not, a light compression does the rest. Our Cambodia eVisa photo size and file format guide for Americans covers the exact conversions, megapixels to file size, step by step.

The two-minute reshoot that clears the flag

Whatever the flag was, one careful reshoot fixes nearly all of them at once, because the same setup that produces a true white background also fixes exposure, shadows, and resolution. You do not need a booth, a print, or a paid service — a phone and a plain white wall does it in about two minutes.

Find a true white wall, a closed white door, or a white sheet pinned flat. Stand about a foot and a half off it so your body does not cast a shadow behind you. Face a window where daylight comes in from the side or front, not from behind you, so your face is lit evenly and the wall stays white — mid-morning or mid-afternoon is the cleanest light. Turn the flash off. Use the rear camera, not the selfie camera, hold the phone in portrait at eye level, and have someone else press the shutter so your arm is not in the frame distorting the proportions.

Look straight at the lens with a relaxed, neutral expression — no smile, mouth closed, eyes open. Glasses off, hat off, hair tucked behind your ears if it crosses your face. Shoot five or six frames and pick the one where your face is evenly lit and the wall behind you is clean and bright but not glaring. Then crop to a square in the Photos app with a little headroom above your head, confirm the file is a JPEG under 2 MB, and re-upload. Skip every filter and beauty setting — the validator is looking for natural skin texture and rejects anything heavily smoothed.

If the flag was specifically about your glasses or your expression, the fine print matters: there is no prescription exception, and even a closed-mouth half-smile counts. Our guide to the Cambodia eVisa photo glasses and expression rules for US citizens covers the edge cases, including kids who will not hold still and head coverings worn for religious reasons.

Re-uploading without resetting your processing clock

Here is the part that calms most people down: a flagged photo does not restart your application or cost you anything. When a file is flagged, you get an email that names exactly what to re-upload — usually the photo, occasionally the passport scan alongside it. You reply or re-upload the corrected file, and the application continues from where it was. There is no second fee, because free resubmission is part of the all-in price.

Speed is the only thing that matters. The 3-business-day approval window keeps running while a correction is outstanding, so the faster you send the clean photo, the less the flag costs you in calendar time. Reshoot the same day the notice arrives, double-check it against the nine-reason list above, and send it back. Most Americans who reshoot promptly still land inside the original 3-business-day window with room to spare.

One practical tip: before you re-upload, open the corrected photo at full size on a real screen, not a thumbnail. Confirm the background reads as genuinely white, your face is evenly lit with visible skin texture, there are no glasses or shadows, and the file is a JPEG under 2 MB. Catching a second problem before you submit beats getting a second flag and losing another half-day. If you fix everything the email named in one pass, you almost never hear about that photo again.

Fix the photo, re-upload, and you are done

A rejected Cambodia eVisa photo is the most fixable problem in the whole application. It is one file, one reshoot, and one re-upload — no new fee, no fresh application, and the clock keeps running. Spend the extra two minutes on the corrected shot: true white wall, even side daylight, flash off, neutral face, glasses off, square JPEG under 2 MB, and not a stray HEIC. Get those right and the photo clears on the next pass.

Everything else about the eVisa stays 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 your passport scan 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 the corrected photo is ready, run through our Cambodia eVisa photo checklist for US citizens before you re-upload, and bookmark our Cambodia visa hub for US citizens as the single reference for cost, documents, and timing.