Printing a passport photo at Walgreens, CVS or Walmart

A single 4 x 6 inch print costs $0.39 at Walgreens or from $0.42 at CVS (prices checked 2026-10-11), and is usually ready within the hour, and our 4 x 6 print sheet puts two 2 x 2 inch passport photos on it with cut marks. That is the cheap route, but it has one catch worth knowing before you drive there: some branches refuse to print anything described as a passport photo. This guide covers the order that works, the refusals to expect, and what we do and do not do for you.

Order a plain 4 x 6 print, not a 'passport photo'

All three chains sell their own in-store passport photo service, where a member of staff takes your picture. When a branch hears 'passport photo', some will insist on that service and refuse your file; customers of other photo services report exactly this, and one reviewer was told the store was required to take their own photos. The store's photo lab, by contrast, prints any 4 x 6 picture you upload without asking what it is.

So upload the 4 x 6 sheet to the store's photo site or app as a normal 4 x 6 print, say nothing about passports, and cut along the printed marks yourself at home. If the upload form offers cropping or 'fit to page', choose 'do not crop' so the photos keep their exact size. Our pages for Walgreens, CVS and Walmart list the per-store details, and the price comparison shows what each in-store service charges instead.

Why the print passes the rules

Store photo labs print on real photographic paper, which is what the State Department requires: the US passport photo must be on photo-quality paper, and plain-paper prints are rejected. USCIS asks for thin glossy photo paper for the green card photo and the work permit photo, which a lab print also satisfies. The sheet carries a printed ruler line; measure it when you collect the order, because a lab machine can scale a print just as a home printer can. The ruler check guide explains what to do if it is off.

What we do not do

We do not mail prints and we do not send orders to stores. You download the sheet and place the store order yourself, which means there is no pickup order that can silently fail to arrive, a failure mode that shows up repeatedly in reviews of services that promise same-day store pickup. The only things that change hands are your file and the store's print price.

Step by step

The whole trip, start to finish.

1.Download the 4 x 6 print sheet from our tool and check it opens correctly on your phone or computer.
2.On the store's photo site or app, order one or two 4 x 6 prints of the sheet, glossy or matte, and pick 'do not crop' if asked.
3.Collect the prints, measure the ruler line (2 inches exactly) before leaving the counter, and ask for a reprint without resizing if it is wrong.
4.Cut along the corner marks with scissors; the gaps between photos are there for the blades.

Frequently asked questions

Will the store refuse even a plain 4 x 6 order?

Refusals we know of involve orders labelled as passport photos. A plain 4 x 6 print order is ordinary lab work; we have no reports of one being refused, but policy is set per branch, so a second nearby store is the fallback.

Can you send the order to my local store for me?

No. We never place store orders, exactly because third-party pickup orders are the step that fails most often in other services' reviews. You place the order with your own store account and collect it yourself.

Sources

Last updated 2026-10-11

We are an independent service, not a government website. Applying for a passport or visa is done with your government; we only prepare the photo.