Estonia e-Residency Photo for Your Digital ID — 1300 × 1600 px, 1–5 MB JPEG

The Estonia e-Residency photo is a recent colour digital passport photo that you upload in the online application for the e-Resident's digital ID, issued by the Police and Border Guard Board (PBGB). It must be a .jpg or .jpeg file of at least 1300 × 1600 pixels, 1.0–5.0 MB in size and not older than six months. It is used to verify your identity and will not appear on the card.

Upload a photo someone else took of you, and IDPhotoBy formats it to these rules.

These requirements come from the PBGB, including its rules for face photos:

• File format: .jpg or .jpeg only.
• Pixel size: at least 1300 pixels wide and 1600 pixels tall, and no bigger than 6000 × 7380 pixels.
• File size: at least 1.0 MB and no more than 5.0 MB.
• Colour and recency: a colour photo, not older than six months.
• Framing: a clear close-up of your head and the top of your shoulders, with your face in the centre and taking up 70–80% of the photo.
• Background: plain and light-coloured, in clear contrast to you, with no other objects or people and no shadows on your face or behind you.
• Unaltered: the photo must be unaltered by computer software. A scanned photo or a photo of a photo is not accepted.

The PBGB warns that a photo that does not comply with the requirements may result in a refusal to issue the e-Residency digital ID card.

A JPEG can measure 1300 × 1600 pixels and still weigh less than 1.0 MB, because JPEG compression makes files smaller — that file meets the pixel rule but breaks the file-size rule. The format rule is just as literal: simply changing the file extension (photo.png → photo.jpg) is not sufficient.

• Pose: face forwards and look straight at the camera.
• Expression: a plain expression with your mouth closed.
• Eyes: open and visible, with no hair in front of your eyes and nothing covering your face.
• Glasses: allowed only if your eyes are clearly visible, the frames do not cover your eyes, there is no flash reflection and the lenses are not tinted.
• Head covering: not allowed unless it is for religious or medical reasons.

Do not take a selfie: according to the PBGB, it distorts the shape of your head and shows a mirror image of your face. Ask a friend or a family member to take the photo with a phone's rear camera — the front camera distorts the shape of the face. Use a plain, light-coloured wall, face the light to avoid shadows, and keep other people and objects out of the frame.

1. Have someone take your photo, as described above.
2. Upload it with the tool on this page — the e-Residency digital ID is already selected.
3. IDPhotoBy crops and resizes it to 1950 × 2400 pixels, checks the background and saves a JPEG made to fall within the 1.0–5.0 MB file-size window.
4. Check the preview, download the JPEG and upload it in your e-Residency application.

The photo is used to verify your identity and is not printed on the card. You collect the digital ID in person at the pick-up location you choose, where e-residents are also fingerprinted. This page covers the e-Residency digital ID only — not the Estonian ID card (ID-kaart) or the residence permit card.

IDPhotoBy works on the format of your photo: it crops and resizes it, sets the file size and checks the background. It cannot turn a selfie or a scanned print into an acceptable photo, so start from a photo someone else took of you. It makes no acceptance promise: the Police and Border Guard Board decides on your application.

Requirements can change. Check the official application portal before submitting.