Checked: October 2026. The figures below come from Department of Home Affairs (formerly DIBP) guides for attaching documents in ImmiAccount, hosted on Australian embassy sites: a 2015 guide and a July 2017 one. They agree on the 5 MB limit. The department's own ImmiAccount help pages could not be opened by our tools, so the exact list of file types and the number of files for your visa can have changed. Always trust what the Attach documents screen in your account shows.
What the Department says
- Size: each attachment can be up to 5 MB. Both guides say this.
- Number of files: it depends on the application type, from 30 to 60 in the 2015 guide, and the 2017 guide's examples run from none to 60 depending on the visa. Check your own application. If you reach the limit, the department says to wait for a case officer to ask for more, or use its separate form for additional documents.
- File types: the 2017 guide lists BMP, DCM, DOC, DOCX, DOT, GIF, JPG, PDF, PNG, PPT, PPTX, RTF, TXT, XLS and XLSX for visa applications. PDF, JPG and PNG are the practical choices for scans and photos.
- File names: use only the letters A to Z (upper or lower case), numbers 0 to 9, dashes and underscores. No spaces, full stops, ampersands, hashes or other symbols.
- Compressed files: the department does not accept them. A ZIP file will not work. If a file is too big, make it a smaller PDF instead.
- Removal: once an attachment has been added, it cannot be removed from the application. Check each file first.
- Order: upload required documents first, then recommended ones.
The 2017 guide also says encrypted PDF files cannot be accepted for citizenship applications, and that documents added to a citizenship application after lodging must be JPG files no larger than 500 KB. If you are doing a citizenship application, check which rule applies at your stage.
Common reasons uploads fail
Most failed uploads come from three things: a file over 5 MB (a phone photo of a page is often 3 to 8 MB), a file name with a space or bracket in it, or a password-protected or encrypted PDF. The fixes are all things you can do before you open ImmiAccount.
Prepare your files with DocPro, on your device
Passports, bank statements and police certificates are exactly what you would rather not push through an unknown website. DocPro processes files in your browser and does not upload them, so the originals stay on your computer or phone.
- Photograph or scan each document. Keep the full page in view, flat and sharp. The department warns that low quality scans might slow processing, so do not shrink a page until the text blurs.
- If a document has several pages (for example a bank statement), merge the pages into one PDF. If you started with photos, use Images to PDF to make one file per document.
- Check the size. If the PDF is over 5 MB, run Compress PDF with a target of about 4 MB so there is a margin. The tool tells you the size it reached. Read the result at full zoom before you attach it.
- If a PDF is still too large, split it into two parts, for example statements for months 1 to 6 and months 7 to 12, and attach both with clear descriptions.
- Rename the file with letters, numbers, dashes and underscores only, for example Jane_Smith_passport_bio_page.pdf.
For general techniques, see the guide to compressing a PDF for upload limits. If you also need a visa photo, the Australian passport photo size page lists the preset.
Scan resolution
The 2017 guide suggests scanning at 96 DPI to keep sizes within the limit. That is a ceiling for small files, not a goal: if small print becomes hard to read at that setting, scan a little higher and compress afterwards, or split the document.
Applying for a UK visa as well? Its portal has different file rules, covered in uploading documents for a UK visa.
Before you press Attach
- Is each file under 5 MB?
- Is each name only letters, numbers, dashes and underscores?
- Is the right person, evidence type and document type selected? (The 2015 guide warns that a shortcut link can default to the first document type.)
- Is the description clear enough that a case officer can identify the document?
- Is this the final copy? You will not be able to delete it.