Crop your Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) photo. Same spec as an India passport photo.

Passport Seva Kendra doesn't publish a separate photo specification of its own. It uses the same 2x2in (51x51mm) size as the standard India passport application, with your head measured top-of-hair to bottom-of-chin between 25 and 35mm, on a plain white or off-white background.

PSK staff photograph every applicant on-site as a standard part of the appointment, regardless of what you upload or bring with you beforehand. Your own photo mainly covers the online application form itself, and any printed-copy requirement for your specific appointment category. Tatkaal and police-verification categories most often ask for a physical print.

This page exists as a dedicated PSK-focused guide, but the underlying spec is identical to this site's India passport photo page, see that page for the fuller FAQ on printed copies and appointment categories.

If you've come across the terms PSK and POPSK while researching your appointment, they aren't interchangeable, even though people often use them that way. A Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) is a full-service passport office, run as a partnership between the Ministry of External Affairs and outsourced service partners in most major cities, handling everything from document verification to biometrics and your in-person interview. A POPSK, or Post Office Passport Seva Kendra, is a smaller counter set up inside select India Post branches, mainly to extend passport services into towns that don't have a full PSK nearby.

Both run on the same underlying Passport Seva system, and both photograph you on-site as part of the appointment, so the photo spec covered on this page applies whichever one you're booked at. What actually differs is scale: a POPSK typically handles standard fresh and reissue applications, while cases that need closer review are more likely to route through a full PSK. If your appointment confirmation names a POPSK rather than a PSK, that isn't a downgrade, it usually just means you're going through the post-office channel for the same underlying process.

Along with your photo, your PSK appointment needs a short stack of paperwork: your appointment receipt with the ARN (Application Reference Number) printed on it, original and self-attested copies of your proof of address and date of birth documents, and, for a reissue, your existing passport. The photo you upload during the online application mostly covers the form itself, since PSK staff photograph every applicant again on-site regardless. Treat your own upload as the version that needs to look right on screen, aligned and correctly sized, rather than assuming it's the one that ends up in the booklet.

Where a printed photo still matters is for Tatkaal applications and cases that get referred for police verification, both of which more often ask for a physical 2x2in print alongside the standard documents. It's worth checking your own appointment confirmation rather than assuming, since requirements can shift slightly by category and by which PSK or POPSK you're assigned to.

Plans change, and the Passport Seva portal lets you reschedule or postpone an appointment online rather than losing your slot entirely, though a new date isn't guaranteed to open up quickly. If your file gets sent for police verification, which many first-time and address-change applications are, you can track that status separately once your PSK appointment is done, using your ARN. It typically takes longer than the PSK visit itself and runs on its own timeline through your local police station.

A few other questions tend to surface once you're deep in the process, even though they have nothing to do with the photo itself. The ARN on your acknowledgement receipt is what you'll use to track your application status online, so it's worth holding onto after your appointment. If your issued passport comes back marked Type P, that stands for Personal, the standard type nearly every applicant gets, as opposed to Type S (Service, for government officials on duty) or Type D (Diplomatic).

Small personal detail changes, like a new mobile number or email address, can usually be updated through the Passport Seva portal without a fresh PSK appointment, though a formal address change on the passport itself is a bigger update that typically still needs its own reissue application. Once your new passport is issued, DigiLocker lets you save an official electronic copy for quick reference, separate from the physical booklet you'll still need for actual travel.