What Photo Do İstanbulkart, Başkent Kart and Other City Cards Need, and How Do You Upload It?

What Photo Does an İstanbulkart Need, and How Do You Upload It?

İstanbulkart's official pages give no millimetres, pixels, file size or background colour for the photo. The document lists for the 65+, disabled, veteran and martyr’s family cards say “Son 6 ay içinde çekilmiş vesikalık fotoğraf” (an ID photo taken in the last 6 months), and the list for students who must apply at a service centre says “Güncel vesikalık fotoğraf” (a current ID photo) (İstanbulkart card types, in Turkish). For an online application, the limit shown on the form screen is what counts.

Online applications are made at bireysel.istanbulkart.istanbul after your account is verified in the İstanbulkart Mobil app. Student, teacher, 60+, 65+ and press cards can be applied for online; the disabled, veteran and martyr’s family cards are applied for in person at an İstanbulkart service centre. The web form accepts PNG, JPG and JPEG, lets you take the photo with the camera and asks you to position it in a cropping screen. For under-18s, a parent uses the “Yakınım Adına Başvuru” (apply on behalf of a relative) option.

If an application is rejected because of the photo, the FAQ's answer is: “view your application, click 'Başvuru güncelleme' (update application) and make the necessary update in the photo section.” Registering your name on a card, known as personalisation, needs no photo; the “card image” offered there is the card's design, not your ID photo.

At vesikalik.com.tr the standard 45×60 mm ID photo downloads as a JPG or PNG file, and a 10×15 print sheet holds 4 of them; delivery options in İstanbul are on the İstanbul ID photo page.

What Photo Do Başkent Kart (Ankarakart) and İzmirim Kart Need?

Ankarakart is now called Başkent Kart Ulaşım. In EGO's application information (in Turkish) the photo line for the student, 65+ and disabled cards is “Bir adet vesikalık fotoğraf” (one ID photo), and for the teacher card it is “Vesikalık fotoğraf (Son üç aylık)” (an ID photo from the last three months); applications are made at the Kart İşlem Merkezi card offices. If you are a teacher, a six-month-old photo is not enough. The form for personalising an existing card says on screen “Fotoğrafınızı yükleyin (JPG/JPEG/PNG) (Max 5MB)”, so the official answer to how to upload an Ankarakart photo is: JPG or PNG, 5 MB at most.

İzmirim Kart's document list says “Son 6 ay içerisinde çekilmiş 1 adet fotoğraf” (one photo taken in the last 6 months). A lost, stolen or worn card is renewed in person; according to the FAQ, an applicant who brings “one biometric photo taken in the last 6 months” gets the card printed within 10 minutes, but no size is given. The youth, teacher, 60+ and 65+ cards can also be applied for in the mobile app; whether a separate photo is taken at its “identity and face verification” step is not stated in the official text.

How Do Antalya, Bursa, Konya, Kayseri and Kocaeli Ask for a Card Photo?

City cards are not governed by a single regulation; the table was compiled on 18 October 2026 from the issuers' own pages. None of them gives millimetres, pixels or a background colour, and numeric limits appear only on the Başkent Kart and Antalya application screens. Antalya warns that “applications without a current document and photo upload are cancelled”, and the online files together must not exceed 5 MB.

Of the cities in the table, only Konya says a photo can be taken at its office: “Büromuzda web kamerası ile … fotoğraf çekilebilmektedir” (a photo can be taken with a webcam at our office). For a Konyakart renewal, the current photo already in the system can also be used.

Kentkart is the name of a card system, and the city where this guide could confirm its use is Kocaeli. There, the discounted card applied for online is a digital QR card (“no physical card is issued”), and the only photo rule is that the uploaded photo must be “in colour and in a format where your face is clear”.

Do Disabled, 65+ and Student Cards Need a Photo?

Searches for a “disabled card photo” mix up two cards. On the optional Disability ID Card of the Ministry of Family and Social Services, the photo comes from MERNİS (the population register) when you apply on e-Devlet, two photos are asked for an in-person application at the provincial directorate (the Ministry's FAQ, in Turkish), and a photo is mandatory from age 15. The card does not replace the Turkish ID card, whose photo rules are separate. The city's disabled transport card is another matter: İstanbulkart takes in-person applications with a medical board report and an ID photo from the last 6 months; Başkent Kart asks for the report or the Ministry's disability ID card plus one ID photo.

At 65, the Regulation on Free or Discounted Travel Cards (in Turkish) gives Turkish citizens aged sixty-five and over free travel on urban public transport; the “nüfus cüzdanı” (identity card) is used for it, and the right “cannot be blocked on any grounds”. A 65+ card with a photo is therefore not a condition but a separate card. At İstanbulkart a spouse or child can apply for it too, showing both original IDs. Note that the regulation names Turkish citizens.

For a student transport card, İstanbulkart takes the photo as an upload in the online application; foreign students with a temporary YÖK number starting with 97 or 98 go to a service centre with their passport, a current ID photo and a student certificate. The student ID issued by a school or university is a separate document: its size is on the student ID photo page and the number needed for enrolment in the how many ID photos guide.

What Photo Do Sports Licences and Other Personal Cards Need?

No regulation sets a photo size for a sports licence; the Ministry's licence regulation requires the procedures to run through its IT system. The Antalya Provincial Directorate of Youth and Sports asks for “two current ID photos” for a new licence, while for the Turkish Football Federation's digital amateur licence the club uploads “an ID photo of the player taken no more than 6 months ago”, so you give the file to your club.

For the press card, Article 28 of the Press Card Regulation makes uploading an ID photo to the application system mandatory; a press card holder can also apply online for the press İstanbulkart. If the list gives no size, a standard ID photo is a common choice; if it does, that size applies.

What Should You Watch for When Shooting and Uploading With a Phone?

The points below are not the card issuers' rules but the general rules from the biometric ID photo note of Turkey's Ministry of Labour and Social Security: the face centred and fully visible with the hair, eyes open, looking into the camera, head upright, mouth closed and no expression; light falling evenly on the face, no glare on glasses, no hat or sunglasses. With a headscarf, the face must be visible from the chin to the forehead.

Hold the phone at eye level, use the rear camera and face a window (guide to taking an ID photo with a phone). The iPhone's HEIC file is not on the forms' lists, so convert it to JPG; if the screen shows no limit, do not shrink the file (file size guide); in the cropping screen, centre your face and keep the top of your hair in frame (guide to cropping to size).

At vesikalik.com.tr the analysis is free before payment: the AI sets the framing, whitens the background and shows any problem with sharpness, pose, expression or lighting. The 45×60 mm delivered photo is about 638×851 pixels, so a JPG or PNG file stays far below 5 MB and is kept in your account. Acceptance is always the card issuer's decision.