A LinkedIn profile photo needs to be square, at least 400 x 400 pixels, under 8 MB, and saved as a JPG or PNG. The background banner is 1584 x 396 pixels, also under 8 MB. Those are the only numbers that matter.
Most people who search for this are not blocked by the minimum. They are blocked by the maximum: a photo straight off a modern phone is often 10 to 20 MB, and LinkedIn refuses it. The fix takes a minute once you know which settings to change, and I cover that below.
The limits LinkedIn actually publishes
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LinkedIn's own help page states that a profile photo must be between 400 x 400 and 7680 x 4320 pixels, under 8 MB, and a PNG or JPG. GIFs are not supported. If your upload fails, one of those three rules is the reason nine times out of ten.
For the background photo (LinkedIn now calls it the cover image), the help page recommends 1584 x 396 pixels, JPG or PNG, and a file smaller than 8 MB. That is a 4:1 aspect ratio. LinkedIn also notes on the same page that a blurry cover usually means the source file was too small, and that photographs look better than images built around logos.
Two things follow from this. First, "400 x 400" is a floor, not a target. Upload something around 1000 x 1000 and let LinkedIn scale it down; a small file scaled up is where the fuzziness comes from. Second, the banner is wide and short, so a normal horizontal phone photo will lose its top and bottom. Crop it to 4:1 yourself before uploading so you control what gets cut.
What a good headshot looks like
LinkedIn's talent blog gives the framing rule I would give: your face should take up at least 60 percent of the frame, cropped from the top of your shoulders to just above your head. The same post says a profile with a photo is 14 times more likely to be viewed than one without, which is the number to remember if you have been putting this off.
The rest is short.
Background: plain. A painted wall, a soft outdoor blur, an office with nothing readable behind you. The photo is going to render at the size of a thumbnail in search results, and a busy background turns it into noise.
Expression: a real smile, eyes on the lens. LinkedIn's post cites research that people rate a smile as more likable and competent, and a smile that shows teeth as roughly twice as likable as a closed one. You do not need to force it; ask whoever is holding the phone to say something funny.
Clothing: what you would wear to a first day at the job you want. Solid colors hold up better than patterns at thumbnail size.
Light: window light or open shade, never overhead fluorescents and never direct midday sun. Turn to face the window, put the phone between you and it, and the shadows sort themselves out.
Have someone else take it. A selfie at arm's length distorts the face slightly and the angle always looks like a selfie.
How to get a phone photo under 8 MB without blur
The mistake people make is to shrink the pixel dimensions until the file is small enough. That works, but it throws away detail LinkedIn could have used. Change the quality setting first and the dimensions second.
Here is the order that keeps the photo sharp.
- Crop to a square, face at 60 percent of the frame. A tight crop alone usually cuts the file size in half because you are discarding pixels you never needed.
- Resize so the short edge is about 1000 to 1200 pixels. That is well above the 400 minimum and more than LinkedIn will ever display.
- Export as JPEG at quality 80 to 85. At those settings a 1200 x 1200 headshot lands around 200 to 400 KB, which is a fortieth of the limit, and the difference from quality 100 is invisible on any screen.
- Check the result at 100 percent zoom. If you see blocky patches in the smooth areas (a plain wall shows this first), go back up to quality 90.
The browser-based image compressor does all four steps without uploading the file anywhere, and shows the output size before you download. Two things it will not do for you: it will not fix a photo that was blurry to begin with, and it will not add pixels back once you have downsized. Keep the original.
For the banner, the same process applies with a 4:1 crop and a target width of 1584 pixels. If you make one in a design tool, export at 1584 x 396 and skip the compressor entirely; a graphic that size saved as PNG is typically under 1 MB.
Photo dimensions across the sites you will use
Only numbers confirmed on each platform's own help pages appear here.
| Where | Size | File limit | Formats | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn profile photo | 400 x 400 min, 7680 x 4320 max | 8 MB | JPG, PNG | Square; no GIFs |
| LinkedIn cover image (banner) | 1584 x 396 recommended | 8 MB | JPG, PNG | 4:1 ratio |
| Indeed profile photo | No pixel minimum published | 30 MB | JPG, PNG, HEIC | App only; employers cannot see it |
| Resume header (US, UK, CA, AU) | Do not include one | n/a | n/a | See below |
Indeed's help center confirms the 30 MB limit and JPG, PNG or HEIC formats, and states that the photo is optional, uploads only through the app, and is not shown to employers. Glassdoor publishes sizes for company logos and covers but nothing for a job seeker's own picture. Put your effort into LinkedIn.
The resume row deserves a sentence. In the US, UK, Canada and Australia I would leave the photo off the resume entirely. The convention in these markets is text only, an image is one more thing for a resume parser to trip over, and a headshot adds nothing the reader cannot get from your LinkedIn in one click. Your profile photo is where your face belongs; the resume is text.
What not to do
Do not upload a photo cropped from a group shot. The face will be small, the resolution will be low, and there is often a stray shoulder in the frame.
Do not use a logo, a cartoon avatar, or a photo of your dog as your profile picture. Recruiters search by name and glance at the thumbnail to confirm they have the right person; an abstract image fails that check.
Do not re-save the same JPEG five times while you fiddle with the crop. Each save at a lower quality compounds the loss. Go back to the original for every attempt.
Do not overlap the banner with text placed low in the frame or in the bottom left corner, where your profile photo sits on top of it on desktop and mobile. Keep any wording in the right two thirds of the banner, and run the headline you plan to add through a character counter so it stays short enough to read at a glance.
FAQ
What is the best LinkedIn profile photo size in 2026?
Upload a square image around 1000 x 1000 pixels. LinkedIn's minimum is 400 x 400 and its maximum is 7680 x 4320, but anything between 800 and 2000 pixels on each side gives you a sharp result at every display size without a huge file. Keep it under 8 MB and save it as JPG.
Why does LinkedIn say my photo is too large?
Almost always because the file is over 8 MB, which is common for an unedited phone photo. Crop to a square, resize to about 1200 pixels, and export as a JPEG at quality 80 to 85. The result is usually under 500 KB and looks identical on screen.
What size is the LinkedIn banner?
LinkedIn recommends 1584 x 396 pixels for the personal profile cover image, a 4:1 ratio, as a JPG or PNG under 8 MB. Company Pages use a different size, 1512 x 256, so do not reuse one for the other without re-cropping.
Does a LinkedIn photo need to be professional quality?
It needs to be sharp, well lit, and clearly you. A phone photo taken by a friend near a window in front of a plain wall meets that bar. A paid headshot helps for client-facing and senior roles, but a good phone photo beats a bad studio photo every time.
