SSC Photo & Signature Size 2026: CGL, CHSL, MTS Guide

Last updated: July 2026

SSC's photo and signature specification is one of the strictest among Indian government exams — a narrow 20KB to 50KB band that catches out thousands of first-time applicants every recruitment cycle. This guide breaks down the exact numbers for CGL, CHSL, MTS and GD Constable, and explains a detail many candidates miss: the difference between your uploaded photo and the live photo capture used during registration.

SSC Photo and Signature Specification

This specification is shared across nearly all SSC recruitment — Combined Graduate Level (CGL), Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL), Multi-Tasking Staff (MTS), GD Constable, CPO and Stenographer. If you have already resized a photo for one SSC exam, the same file will typically work for another, as long as the recruitment notification hasn't specified a different size for that particular cycle.

Live Photo vs Uploaded Photo — What's the Difference?

A detail that confuses many first-time SSC applicants is that the registration process can involve two separate photo steps. The first is the standard photograph you upload as a file — this is the one that appears on your application form, admit card and result, and it must strictly meet the 200×230px, 20KB–50KB specification described above. The second, used in some SSC application flows and at certain exam centres, is a live photo capture taken directly through your webcam or the exam centre's biometric system for real-time identity verification. The live capture is not something you resize or upload yourself — it happens automatically during the process — so all your preparation effort should go into getting the uploaded photograph file exactly right, since that is the one the SSC portal will reject or accept based on precise pixel and file size matching.

Why SSC's KB Range Is So Narrow

Unlike UPSC, which allows anywhere from 20KB to 300KB, SSC's window is just 20KB to 50KB — a difference that matters because SSC processes applications at an enormous scale, often several times larger than most other recruitment bodies in a single cycle. Keeping individual files small reduces server load and speeds up processing for millions of candidates. The tradeoff is that candidates need to actively compress their photo rather than just resize it, since an unedited smartphone photo resized to 200×230px can still be well above 50KB purely from JPEG encoding overhead.

Signature Rules for SSC Forms

Your SSC signature must be your normal handwritten signature — the same one you would use on a cheque or an official document — signed in black or blue ink on plain white paper. The accepted file size window of 10KB to 20KB is even tighter than the photo, so an unedited scan almost always needs to be compressed down before the form will accept it. Avoid signing on ruled or lined paper, since the background lines can show through in the scan and make the final signature harder to read on your admit card.

Preparing Your Photo Before You Start the Form

Before you sit down to fill the SSC application, take a fresh passport-style photo against a plain background, and have your signature ready on clean white paper. If your photo was taken with a modern phone camera, it will likely be several megabytes and need both resizing to 200×230px and compression down to the 20KB–50KB band at the same time — doing these separately with different tools often means going back and forth until the file size lands correctly. If you are also applying to other exams around the same period, it's worth preparing your RRB or IBPS photos at the same sitting, since a good quality source photo works across all of them — you'll just need to resize it separately for each exam's specification. If your final image is still a touch too big after resizing, our general-purpose image compressor can bring any file down further before you upload it.

Frequently Asked Questions