How do I check my application photo?

The only photo rule Switzerland publishes — and why it is not yours

Search for the measurements of an application photo and you find advice pages quoting each other. There is exactly one Swiss text with binding numbers about a portrait, and it is about identity documents, not applications: the ordinance of the Federal Department of Justice and Police on identity documents for Swiss nationals. Its Article 12 sets out what a photograph you bring along has to satisfy, and it is remarkably precise.

The photograph must be supplied as a colour image in JPEG format with high-quality compression and a file size of about 700 kilobytes, and — in the ordinance's own words — it may not be retouched. The frame is portrait, in a ratio of 8 to 11, which is narrower than the familiar 35 by 45 shape, and holds a little under 2.9 million image points. The pupil-to-pupil distance has to be between 15 and 20 per cent of the image width, and the eyes have to sit between 50 and 60 per cent of the image height, measured from the bottom edge.

Three of those you can measure on your own application photo without believing anybody: where the eyes sit, the pupil distance as a proxy for head size, and the weight of the file. Two you should deliberately not copy. A passport photo demands a neutral expression and a plain, textureless background, because a machine has to work with it. Your dossier is read by a person, and a face with no expression at all does not read as serious there — it reads as unapproachable.

What the ordinance does not do is just as telling. Article 13 states that the photo sample table — the sheet of example images the passport offices check against — is not published in the Official Compilation of federal law, on the basis of the Publications Act. It is said to be accessible in electronic form and can be consulted free of charge at the issuing authorities. The address the ordinance points to for that now redirects to the fedpol page on passports and identity cards, where the table is not linked (checked 31 August 2026). So even the one binding Swiss photo standard is not simply there to be read — which only sharpens the point: for the picture in your dossier there is no authority that will do the checking for you.

The crop costs more than the camera

Every CV template, every editor and every application portal drops your image into a frame with a fixed shape. Whatever does not fit is cut away, not scaled down. That makes the first check arithmetic rather than taste.

Do the sum on your own file. Take the target shape as portrait 35 by 45, an aspect ratio of 0.78. A phone held upright gives you 3:4 and 96.4 per cent of its area survives. A square image already loses a fifth. The same phone held sideways gives 4:3 and saves 58.3 per cent; a camera at 3:2 keeps 51.9 per cent, and a wide 16:9 keeps 43.8 per cent. More than two fifths of the picture disappears before anyone sees it — and with it, part of the resolution you were counting on.

Round frames cut away more still. A circle inscribed in a square keeps 78.5 per cent of it. In our own CV editor an uploaded image lands in a round frame 128 image points across, fills it completely, and is anchored to the top edge — so the top of your picture stays and the rest is trimmed from below and from the sides. For portraits that is almost always right, but it has a consequence worth knowing: if there is a lot of empty space above your head, your face slides down inside the circle. Crop the image before you upload it, the way you want it to end up, rather than hoping the frame guesses.

The practical rule is a single one and it is free: shoot in portrait. Phone held upright, someone else holding it, light coming from in front of you — and you have already saved 96 image points in every 100 for the crop and settled the resolution question.

What the advert tells you: almost never anything

You might hope the advert answers the question. It does not, and that can be quantified. We counted the text of every live advert we hold with a usable description — about four fifths of the active stock. A photo is mentioned in 0.01 per cent of them, once photography jobs, photovoltaics and image-editing software are taken out. That is one advert.

To read that number correctly: everything else that belongs in a dossier is barely named either. References reach 0.45 per cent, the CV itself 0.20 per cent, the motivation letter 0.19 per cent, and the phrase «complete application documents» 0.07 per cent. Swiss adverts describe the job, not the dossier. Waiting for an instruction means waiting for nothing.

The one advert that does ask is instructive enough to mention. It is written in French, comes from healthcare, and asks for a «curriculum vitae complet» — where complete explicitly means with a photo, date of birth, family situation and the number of dependent children, plus references, Arbeitszeugnisse and diplomas, all in French and as a PDF. That is the traditional, institutional reading of a dossier, and it survives above all in French-speaking Switzerland and in the public sector.

Two things follow for your check. First: if an advert does say something about a photo, that is the only rule that counts — follow it in either direction. Second: if it says nothing, which is nearly always, you decide. And then the question is no longer «allowed or not», only «good or not».

Check the file, not just the face

An application photo is a file, and files have properties you can look at rather than guess. Open the file information before you upload it anywhere. It shows the capture date, unless that was stripped when the image was saved — the fastest answer to whether the picture is still current. It also shows the edge lengths in image points, which is what you need for the arithmetic in the previous section.

Weight is the second point. The ordinance works with about 700 kilobytes for an image of just under 2.9 million points. An application photo needs a fraction of that area after cropping. If your file weighs several megabytes you are carrying resolution nobody will ever see, and inflating the dossier. Save it as a good-quality JPEG and then upload it.

The third point is placement. The picture belongs inside the PDF, not beside it as a separate file. Forms that accept attachments treat extra image files differently and some simply discard them. What is in the document travels with the document. Check your exported PDF at the end rather than the preview in the editor — that is what the other side is shown, crop and sharpness included.

And one small thing: the file name. An image called «IMG_4821» says nothing; one called «photo_new_final_2» says too much. Name it the way you name the dossier it sits in.

What you cannot measure — and how to check it anyway

After the measurable points, what is left is the part that decides whether someone warms to you, and there is no number for it. You can still check it, just not alone: show the picture to two people who know you and one who does not, and ask each of them the same question — «who do you see here?». The people who know you tell you whether it is you. The person who does not tells you what impression you make before anyone reads a line.

Two patterns recur in what Swiss practitioners write about CVs, and neither is about technique. The first is the age of the image: the warning is never about a missing photo, it is about an old one. The second is likeness — a portrait nobody recognises at the interview works against you, whether it is too stern or too polished.

That gives a usable rule for currency: if your hair, beard or glasses have changed since the picture was taken, the picture is old regardless of the date in the file. And if your public profile online shows a different face from your dossier, one of the two is wrong — a Swiss recruiter will typically look at both.

If you are arriving from a market where nobody attaches a photo

Most readers of this page in English are either not in Switzerland yet or have arrived recently, which means the habit you bring is probably the opposite of the local one. In the United States and the United Kingdom a photo on a CV is treated as a liability for the employer, and applicant guidance tells you to leave it off. In Switzerland it stayed. Whether one belongs in your dossier at all is a separate question, and we answer it on the page «Should I put a photo on my Swiss CV?». This page starts one step later: you have decided in favour, and you want to know whether the picture is any good.

There is a language point worth knowing while you check. The ordinance with all the numbers in it exists on Fedlex in German, French and Italian only — there is no English manifestation of it, and the same is true of most of the ordinance-level law around identity documents. The framework act above it does have an English version, prefaced by Fedlex's own note that English is not an official language and the translation has no legal force. So if you want to read the actual figures rather than take ours, read Article 12 in one of the three official languages.

The second thing that trips up arrivals is the file itself. A corporate headshot taken for a company website is usually landscape, cropped wide, with the subject off-centre — a shape built for a web banner. Put through the crop in the section above, it is the worst case on the list. If that is the only professional picture you own, have it recropped in portrait before you use it, and check the result at the size it will actually be printed, not on a large screen.

And keep the proportions of the whole task in mind. For a Swiss reader the parts of your dossier that carry real weight are the Arbeitszeugnisse (the written employer references), the CEFR language levels stated as B2 or C1 rather than «fluent», the Bewilligung line if you are not Swiss, and a Pensum given in per cent. The photo is the first thing seen and the least informative thing on the page. It has to be good; it does not have to be agonised over.

The order to check in

First the advert: if it says something about a photo, that governs and nothing else does. In the overwhelming majority of cases it says nothing.

Then the shape: portrait, ratio near 35 by 45, head and shoulders, eyes in the upper third. Then the file: capture date, edge lengths, weight, JPEG. Then the export: how the picture looks in the finished PDF, not in the preview. Only after that the question of whether you look good in it — and you are not the one who answers that.

The rest is effort against return. A portrait that passes this check lasts several years and dozens of applications. One that fails it costs you a little on every single one — not because the photo decides anything, but because it is seen first and sets the tone for everything after it.