Many national e-visa portals and outsourcing systems like VFS-Global-style application platforms impose small photo and document upload caps, commonly somewhere between 200KB and 2MB. The exact number varies drastically by country and specific portal, so it's worth checking your portal's stated limit rather than assuming one figure applies.
Compress a PDF nowVisa application systems are run by dozens of different governments and outsourcing agencies, each with its own technology and its own upload rules, so there is no single universal size cap to quote — some portals cite figures as low as 200KB for a passport photo, while others allow up to 2MB for a full supporting document. What is consistent across most of them is that the Recommended-to-Extreme range in Compress PDF covers the bulk of that spread, so trying Recommended first and stepping up to Extreme if the portal rejects the file is a reliable approach regardless of which country's system you are using.
Before compressing anything, check the instructions on the visa or outsourcing portal you are using — caps vary widely by country, from around 200KB up to 2MB, so compressing to the wrong target wastes time.
Add your passport scan, photo, or supporting document PDF in your browser — nothing is sent to a server during compression.
Recommended quality covers portals with more generous limits; if your specific system requires something closer to 200-300KB, switch to Extreme.
Confirm the compressed file meets the number stated on your specific application system before uploading, since limits differ from country to country.
No — limits are set independently by each country’s e-visa system or outsourcing portal and commonly range from about 200KB to 2MB, so always check the instructions on the specific portal you are applying through rather than assuming a fixed number.
Photos and scanned documents often have separate size rules on visa portals, so compress and check each against its own stated limit rather than assuming one compression pass covers both.
For an unusually strict cap, try re-scanning the original document at a lower resolution before compressing, since starting from a smaller source file gives Compress PDF more room to work with.