White is not the default: background colour by country

Most people assume passport photos always have a white background. A significant number of countries specifically do not want white, and will refuse a photo that has one. It is one of the least-known rejection causes.

Countries that want white or off-white

Canada, the United States, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Thailand, most of South Asia, most of Africa, Mexico and Brazil all expect a plain white or very near-white background. The US specification explicitly says white or off-white.

Countries that want light grey or cream

The United Kingdom asks for a light grey or cream background and states that plain white is not suitable. Ireland requires light grey or light blue. Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and several other European countries specify a plain light grey.

Australia and New Zealand sit in between: a plain light background, with light grey preferred and white generally tolerated.

Why grey rather than white

A pure white background gives no separation between the subject's outline and the backdrop when the photo is printed onto a document page that is itself white. A light grey backdrop preserves the head outline, which helps both human inspection and automated face extraction.

How to get the shade right

Photographing against a genuinely neutral grey wall under even lighting is harder than it sounds, because any colour cast in the light tints the wall. The more reliable approach is to photograph against any plain, shadow-free wall and replace the background with the exact shade the country requires.

When you pick a country format here, the correct background shade is preselected for you, so you do not have to look it up.