Photo & Signature Size for Government Exam Applications 2026 — Complete Guide

Every government and competitive exam application portal in India has its own photo and signature requirement — exact pixel dimensions, file size in KB, and format (almost always JPG / JPEG). Get even one parameter wrong and the portal silently rejects your upload, often without a clear error message. This guide gives you the official spec for every major exam in 2026, plus a free in-browser tool that resizes your photo or signature to those specs in one click.

All of our resizers run entirely in your browser — your photo and signature never leave your device. There is no signup, no watermark, and no upload to any server. Each exam has a dedicated landing page with the right preset already loaded; the links are at the bottom of this guide.

Exam-wise Photo & Signature Specifications (2026)

Always cross-check against the latest official notification PDF before uploading — minor changes (especially KB limits) happen between cycles. The values below are sourced from the most recent official notifications.

How to Resize Your Photo Correctly

Most rejections happen because of file size, not dimensions. A 100×120 pixel JPG taken on a phone can still be 200 KB — well above the 20–50 KB limit most SSC and Banking portals require. The fix is always JPEG quality reduction, not aggressive cropping. Drop the quality slider to 60–80% and the file size falls into range while the photo still looks crisp.

1. Take or pick a recent passport-size colour photograph against a plain white background.
2. Open our Image Resizer and upload the photo.
3. Select your exam preset (or enter the exact width × height in pixels manually).
4. Lower the quality slider until the file size displayed below the preview falls inside the required KB range.
5. Save as JPG, not PNG — JPG compresses photographs much better.

How to Resize Your Signature

Sign on a plain white sheet using a black gel pen or fountain pen. Capture the signature with your phone in good lighting, crop to just the signature, and upload to our resizer. Most exams want a horizontal signature with file size 10–20 KB and dimensions around 140×60 pixels. If the lines look too thin after resizing, try a thicker pen and re-shoot — software cannot reliably "thicken" a signature without distortion.

Need to Combine Photo and Signature?

Some portals (notably SSC and a few state PSCs) ask for a single image with both photo and signature stacked. Use our Photo & Signature Combiner — it merges the two into one JPG sized for direct upload.

Common Rejection Reasons (and Fixes)

• Wrong file size: drop JPEG quality. PNG is the most common cause of oversize files — convert to JPG.
• Wrong dimensions: many candidates use cm instead of pixels. 3.5×4.5 cm at 300 DPI = ~413×531 px, but most portals want around 100×120 px or 200×230 px. Use pixels, not cm.
• Photo with shadow / coloured background: rejected silently by automated photo-checkers. Re-shoot against a white wall.
• Signature too light or pencil-drawn: low contrast trips the OCR/manual check. Use a dark pen and shoot in bright light.
• Wrong format: portals that say "JPG" mean .jpg only — not .heic, .webp, .png. Convert before uploading.

Free Resizer for Each Exam

Click your exam below to open a dedicated resizer page with the right preset pre-loaded: