Exam photo and signature sizes

Five things almost every other page gets wrong

SSC and the Railway boards no longer take a photograph at all. Both capture one live through your camera while you fill the form in, and both treat photographing an existing print as grounds for rejection. Every page quoting an “SSC photo size” in kilobytes is describing a step that no longer exists. The signature is now the only image most of these forms take from you.

The famous railway photo figure belongs to a bank. “200 × 230 pixels, 20–50 KB” is the IBPS Regional Rural Banks specification. It appears on railway pages all over the web and in no Railway Recruitment Board notice.

UPSC’s name-and-date rule is gone. So is “not older than 10 days”, and so is the 350 × 350 to 1000 × 1000 pixel range. None of the three appears in any current UPSC document or in the live application form’s own validation, though coaching sites still publish all of them.

UPSC wants three signatures, not one. Signed vertically, one below the other, in a single image — the form’s own button reads “Upload Triple Signature”. Its older instruction sheet, still published, says one.

NEET’s postcard photograph is not an upload. The 4 × 6 inch print is pasted on a proforma and carried to the examination centre. NEET also wants both hands, fingers and thumbs; JEE Main asks for no impression at all.

Where the authority contradicts itself

These are not mistakes in this table. Each one is two different figures printed by the same body, often in the same document, and you should know about them before you choose which to follow.

• SSC — The signature is 6.0 x 2.0 cm in the instructions and 4.0 x 2.0 cm in Annexure IV of the same PDF, in both the CGL and the CHSL notice. The CGL notice file is named for 2025 while the document inside is the 2026 notice.
• IBPS — The declaration text differs by cycle: PO-XVI and CSA-XVI say "I will present the supporting documents", RRBs-XV says "I will submit". A page must not publish one unified string.
• SBI — The Probationary Officer advertisement says "left-hand thumb" where the Junior Associate one says "left thumb".
• UPSC — The February 2026 instruction sheet and the live form require three signatures; the July 2025 sheet, still published on the site, says one.
• NEET — The thumb impression is 10-200 KB on page 15 and 50-300 KB in the section on page 17. The overlap, 50-200 KB, is the safe reading. The identity document is likewise 10-200 KB in one item and 50-300 KB in another.
• RRB — The signature box is 50 x 20 mm in CEN 03/2026 and 35 x 20 mm in CEN 01/2026, 02/2026, 09/2025 and 05/2025. Physical photographs carried to the examination are "not older than two months" in the notices and "not more than 3 months old" in annexure forms of the same PDFs.

Why a signature gets rejected

The Railway boards are the only body that publishes its grounds in a list, and it is a fair checklist for any of these forms. Not one of them can be fixed by compressing the file — they are all decided before you scan.

• a background that is not white
• ink that is not black
• writing in block or capital letters
• poor resolution
• a signature that is incomplete or only partly visible
• a signature that is not the candidate’s own
• a blank image
• a thumb impression used in place of a signature
• somebody else’s signature

Repeated everywhere, supported by nothing

Each of these is published widely and appears in none of the notices we read. They are listed so you can recognise them, not so you can follow them.

• SSC
  • That the signature must be in black ink, on white paper, and not in capital letters. Those rules are widely attributed to SSC and appear in neither 2026 notice.
• IBPS
  • That the photograph and signature must be scanned at 200 DPI. Only the thumb impression and the declaration carry that figure.
• SBI
  • That the declaration must be in running or cursive handwriting. The word "running" does not occur in either SBI advertisement.
  • That a declaration written by someone else is invalid. That sentence is IBPS wording and is not in the SBI documents.
• UPSC
  • That the photograph must carry the candidate’s name and the date it was taken.
  • That the photograph must be no older than 10 days.
  • That the photograph must be between 350 x 350 and 1000 x 1000 pixels. None of these appear in any current UPSC document or in the live form’s own validation.
• NEET
  • That the postcard-size 4 x 6 inch photograph is uploaded. It is pasted on a proforma and carried to the examination centre.
  • That the name and date must be printed below the photograph. That was an earlier cycle’s rule.
• JEE Main
  • That a thumb or finger impression is required. The word "thumb" does not occur in the bulletin.
  • That the photograph must be 3.5 x 4.5 cm.
  • That the signature must be in blue or black ballpoint. Neither figure is in the bulletin.
• RRB
  • That the photograph is 200 x 230 pixels at 20-50 KB. That is the IBPS Regional Rural BANKS specification, not a railway one, and it is published on railway pages across the web.
  • That the photograph is 320 x 240 pixels at 50-100 KB, or the signature 3.5 x 1.5 cm at 10-40 KB. Both are contradicted by the notices themselves.