Egypt Visa Photo Requirements

Two routes, two ministries

The Egypt e-Visa Portal is run by the Ministry of Interior — every page of it carries that ministry’s copyright line [10]. The consular route is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ and its missions’. The two do not share a photograph rule, because the portal has none: its Requirements section is a list of documents to show on arrival, and a photograph is not among them [8]. Reading a print size across from the portal to a consulate, or the other way round, is the most common way to get this wrong.

The national statement names a count and a background, and nothing else

The ministry’s own national description of a visa issued at Egyptian consulates abroad lists the papers required of every nationality, and its photograph line gives only how many and what colour the background must be [1]. The Arabic original of the same record says the same [2]. The ministry’s official entry visa application form matches it: the box in the corner of the form tells the applicant what to affix there, in Arabic, English and French, and states no measurement [3]. Both of those pages have since been retired from the live ministry site and survive only as web-archive snapshots, which is why this page treats them as the historical national statement rather than a current instruction.

The print size is a mission’s number, not Egypt’s

Egyptian missions do not agree with each other. The consulate general in London — whose page the ministry hosted on its own site — states a metric size, in colour, against a white background, with the applicant’s name written on the back [4]. The embassy in Washington DC and the consulate general in Los Angeles both state a square size in inches instead [5][6][7], which is the size convention of the country they sit in rather than of Egypt. Washington asks for a single print stapled into the form [5]; Los Angeles asks for two [7]. Whichever mission will handle your application is the one whose page decides your print.

What the sources do not say

The London paragraph is the fullest photograph instruction any Egyptian government page publishes, and it covers colour, background, count, print size and the applicant’s name on the back [4]. Nothing on it addresses how large the head should be in the frame, where the eyes should fall, or how the face should be composed. The national pages and the entry visa form are thinner still [1][3]. There is no Egyptian rule on record about glasses, head coverings, expression, hair, clothing or shadows, and no digital file specification of any kind — because the route that would need one does not ask for a photograph.