How to Scan an ID Card or Passport with iPhone

Visa applications, rental agreements, bank verification — everyone wants a copy of your ID, and a glary phone photo usually gets rejected. Here's how to make a clean, accepted scan.

The quick answer

Use a scanner app with an ID mode: it's optimized for the small size, reflective surface, and layout of identification cards, and produces a flat, glare-free, print-quality copy.

Step-by-step: scan an ID or passport

1. Kill the glare first. IDs are laminated and passports have a glossy data page. Work near indirect daylight and angle the document away from light sources.
2. Use ID mode in Mobile Document Scanner — it's tuned for identification documents rather than full pages.
3. Capture both sides of a card; for a passport, scan the full data page with the machine-readable zone (the two lines of characters at the bottom) sharp and legible.
4. Check legibility, then save. Every field should be readable at a glance. Export as PDF or image, whichever the recipient asks for.

Keep your ID scans safe

An ID scan is sensitive data. Keep copies in your document library rather than your shared camera roll, send them only through channels the recipient specifies, and delete copies from email threads once they've been received. Offline scanning helps here: your document never needs to touch a third-party server just to be captured.

Common rejection reasons (and fixes)

• Glare over the photo or text — re-scan with the tilt trick above.
• Cut-off corners — let edge detection frame the card; don't crop manually.
• Blur — rest your elbows on the table and let autofocus settle before capture.