Official upload caps for UPSC, NSP, PAN, Passport photos, and one income-tax flow, with sources and the date we last checked.
Portals in India reject files for being too big and, in one important case, for being too small. The numbers below are copied from the official page linked on each row. They are not a single national standard. Last checked 7 October 2026. If a form on the day you apply disagrees with this table, follow the form.
This page does not cover SSC “compress PDF” queries or EPFO cheque uploads. SSC notices we checked ask for JPEG photo and signature files, not a PDF document cap. EPFO has removed the cheque or passbook image for validated bank accounts. Those are called out under the table so the wrong page does not get written.
Each “Open the tool” link starts Compress PDF in this browser tab. The file is not uploaded to pdfonbrowser.com. Compression redraws pages as images, which is stated on the tool.
| Portal | Limit we found | Official source | Tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| UPSC online application | Document PDF 50–300 KB (there is a minimum). Photo JPG 20–200 KB. Signature JPG 20–100 KB. | UPSC instructions for uploading documents (upsconline.nic.in PDF) | Compress for UPSC |
| National Scholarship Portal | PDF or JPEG, up to 200 KB per document, in the NSP SOP and MoMA FAQ we checked. | scholarships.gov.in FAQ_MOMA.pdf and NSP_SOP.pdf | Compress for scholarship |
| PAN (Protean Form 49A scans) | Supporting documents PDF/A or JPEG, black and white, 200 DPI, maximum 300 KB per page. Photo and signature have separate smaller caps on the same specification page. | tin.tin.proteantech.in Form 49A document specification | Compress for PAN |
| Passport Seva photo | Photo JPEG under 250 KB and 630×810 pixels. A “1 MB per document PDF” figure shows up on third-party sites only — not listed here as a PDF cap. | Passport Seva photo upload instructions | Images to PDF |
| Income-tax e-filing | Attachments up to 5 MB on the representative-assessee request flow. Other e-filing uploads can differ. | incometax.gov.in representative-assessee FAQ PDF (November 2023) | Compress PDF |
| Naukri résumé | Commonly described as under 2 MB for PDF, DOC, DOCX, or RTF. Naukri does not publish one official cap we could cite. Check the form you are filling. | Third-party résumé guides only — not a Naukri spec | Compress to 2 MB |
SSC (CGL, CHSL, GD and similar notices) asks candidates to upload a photograph and a signature as JPEG, with signature files often in a 10–20 KB band. We did not find a PDF document cap on the SSC notice we checked, so there is no “compress PDF for SSC” page on this site. Use a photo editor for those JPEGs.
EPFO’s 2025–26 circular removed the cheque or passbook image upload when the bank account is already validated. Do not hunt for an EPFO cheque-PDF size. The circular is on epfindia.gov.in.
Each row names the official PDF or HTML page we read, and the date at the top of this guide. Naukri’s 2 MB figure is explicitly marked as third-party, not an official spec. Passport’s “1 MB PDF” claim is omitted because we could not verify it.
The UPSC upload instructions set a band, 50 KB to 300 KB, for document PDFs. A file that is too small can be rejected. The compressor warns when a result falls under 50 KB.
No. Compress PDF redraws the file in this browser tab. Document bytes are not sent to pdfonbrowser.com.
SSC photo and signature uploads are JPEG, not PDF. EPFO removed the cheque image for validated bank accounts. Writing a PDF-size page for either would target the wrong task.