How to Take a Cambodia Visa Photo With Your Phone (No Photo Studio Needed)

Taking the photo: camera, framing, and expression

With the setup sorted, the photo itself is quick. The two decisions that matter here are which camera you use and what your face is doing.

Use the main rear camera, not the front-facing selfie camera. The selfie camera is lower resolution and its wide lens distorts your facial proportions at arm’s length, which the validator can catch as an unnatural face shape. Hold the phone in portrait orientation at eye level — not tilted up from your chest or down from above. The best results come from handing the phone to someone else to press the shutter, or propping it on a small tripod or a stack of books and using the timer. An arm’s-length selfie almost always sits too close and warps the frame.

Now the face. Look straight at the lens with a completely neutral expression: eyes open, mouth closed, no smile, no teeth, no raised eyebrows. This is the single most common flag on American photos, simply because we are trained to smile the moment a camera points at us. Relax your whole face and let it go blank. Keep your head straight and centered, not tilted. Tuck any hair back so it does not cross your eyes or cover the edges of your face.

Before you shoot, take the glasses off — all glasses, including thin wire frames and reading glasses, with no exception in the spec. Remove any hat. Head coverings are only allowed when worn daily for religious reasons, and even then your full face must be visible from forehead to chin. Take five or six frames rather than one, change nothing but your micro-expression between them, and pick the sharpest, most neutral shot at the end.

Saving the file so the form accepts it

A great photo can still get rejected on the file itself. The form wants a JPEG (.jpg) under 2 MB, ideally 600×600 pixels or larger, and a square crop is the safest aspect ratio. Modern phones easily clear the resolution bar — the snags are format and size, not pixels.

The iPhone HEIC trap

This is the one that catches the most Americans. By default, recent iPhones save photos as HEIC, not JPEG, and the eVisa form rejects HEIC. Fix it one of two ways. Before you shoot: open Settings, go to Camera, then Formats, and choose "Most Compatible" — your iPhone will save JPEGs from then on. After you shoot: open the photo in the Photos app, and when you upload through a browser, iOS usually converts it to JPEG automatically; to be certain, use a free Files-app or share-sheet export to JPEG. Android phones generally save JPEG by default, so this trap is an Apple one.

Crop square and check the size

Open the shot in your phone’s built-in editor, choose the crop tool, and set it to a 1:1 square. Center your head with a little space above it and your shoulders at the bottom. Do not apply any filter, beauty mode, or smoothing — the validator looks for natural skin texture and rejects heavily processed photos. If the file lands above 2 MB after cropping, the Photos app or any free compressor will bring it down without visibly hurting quality. Then you are ready to upload.

The phone-photo mistakes that get Americans flagged

Every flag we see on a home-shot photo traces back to a short list of avoidable mistakes. Run through this before you upload and you will skip the resubmission round entirely.

• Shooting a selfie. The front camera is lower resolution and its wide lens warps your face. Use the rear camera and the timer, or hand the phone to someone else.
• A wall that is not quite white. Cream, beige, and warm off-white walls read as the wrong color to the validator. Shoot in daylight, or hang a white sheet.
• A shadow behind your head. Standing too close to the wall puts your shadow on it. Step a foot and a half forward and light your face from the side.
• A habitual smile. Even a slight one gets auto-flagged. Relax your face fully and keep your mouth closed.
• Glasses or a hat left on. Both are rejected. Take them off before the shot, even if you wear glasses all day.
• The HEIC format. iPhones save HEIC by default and the form rejects it. Switch to "Most Compatible" or export to JPEG.
• A filter or beauty mode. Smoothing removes natural skin texture and the validator rejects it. Shoot and export the photo raw.

If a photo does get flagged after you submit, do not start over. You re-upload a corrected version against the same application at no extra charge, and the 3-business-day clock keeps running. Free resubmission is part of the all-in price, so a flagged photo costs you a few minutes, not money. If you want to see exactly what each flag looks like and the fix for it, the photo-rejection troubleshooting guide for US citizens walks through them one by one.

Kids, babies, and the harder shots

Every traveler needs their own Cambodia eVisa under their own passport, which means every traveler needs their own photo to the same spec — including infants. A no-smile headshot of a wriggling toddler is, by a wide margin, the hardest part of a family application, but the phone routine still works with a couple of adjustments.

For a baby, lay them on their back on a plain white sheet or blanket with no pattern, and shoot straight down from directly above. The sheet becomes the background, and the overhead angle keeps shadows off and the face centered. Daylight from a nearby window is enough; skip the flash. Babies are not expected to hold a perfectly neutral adult expression, but eyes should be open and the face fully visible, with no toys, hands, or pacifiers in frame. Take a burst of shots and pick one between blinks.

For an older child, the adult routine applies — white wall, daylight, rear camera at their eye level, which means crouching down so you are not shooting at a downward angle. The neutral-face rule is real for kids too, so make it a quick game rather than a long standoff. For anyone who simply cannot get a clean shot at home, the rundown of where to get a Cambodia visa photo for US citizens covers the drugstore and shipping-store counters that produce a compliant digital file you can upload; you do not need their printed prints, just the JPEG.

The photo is one of exactly five things on the Cambodia eVisa: your passport, a recent photo, a passport bio-page scan, an email address, and a payment method. There is no return flight, hotel booking, or bank statement to gather. The full documents checklist for Americans lays out all five and what each one has to be, so you can shoot the photo and finish the rest in the same sitting.

Five minutes, one upload

That is the whole job: a white wall, daylight from the side, the rear camera at eye level, a neutral face, and a JPEG under 2 MB. Five minutes at your kitchen window and you have a compliant Cambodia eVisa photo with no studio, no booth, and no fee. Tourist eVisa $80 USD, Business eVisa $90 USD, both approved in 3 business days and delivered as a printable PDF by email, both with free resubmission if Immigration flags a correction. The iPhone photo guide for US citizens has device-specific screenshots if you want to follow along on an iPhone exactly.

One reminder before you start. The eVisa is one form and the e-Arrival Card is a separate, mandatory form for every air arrival — but the e-Arrival asks for your trip details, not a headshot, so the photo work here is for the visa alone. Plan for both at the start and you avoid the most common 2026 surprise at the airport kiosk. The photo requirements guide for US citizens covers the spec numbers if you want to double-check anything before you upload.

Next steps and related reading for Americans: apply for your Cambodia eVisa when your photo is ready, bookmark our Cambodia visa hub for US citizens as the single canonical reference, read the photo requirements guide for the exact specs, and use the documents checklist to gather the other four items in one pass.