LinkedIn banner size

There is no single LinkedIn banner size. LinkedIn publishes two, they are not close to each other, and picking the wrong one is the reason a banner that looked correct in the editor arrives on the profile with its ends missing.

The two numbers below are quoted from LinkedIn’s own help center, read on September 6, 2026. Every other figure on this page is derived arithmetic from those two, and it says so where it is.

The two sizes, quoted

The profile figure comes from LinkedIn Help, Add or change the background photo on your profile; the Page figure from LinkedIn Help, Image specifications for your LinkedIn Pages and Career Pages. Both were read on September 6, 2026. LinkedIn revises these pages without announcement, so if you are reading this much later, check the source before you commit a template to it.

Why the two numbers are so different

A personal background photo sits behind and above your profile photo, and LinkedIn asks for a 4:1 ratio: 1584 divided by 396 is exactly 4. A Page cover is wider relative to its height — 1512 by 256 works out to about 5.9:1 — because a Page header carries a logo and a name block laid over it rather than a circular portrait punched through it.

That ratio difference is the practical trap. A 1584 × 396 image uploaded as a Page cover is a 4:1 picture being asked to fill a 5.9:1 frame. Something has to give, and what gives is the top and bottom of your artwork. It is not a quality problem and no amount of re-exporting fixes it; the two frames are different shapes.

What “recommended” means here

Both numbers are recommendations, not hard limits. LinkedIn accepts images that are larger or smaller and scales them, which is why a banner can be technically accepted and still look wrong. Two things follow from that:

Bigger is safe; a different shape is not. An image at 3168 × 792 is the same 4:1 shape at twice the resolution, and it downscales cleanly. An image at 1584 × 500 is a different shape and will be cropped no matter how many pixels it has.

The file size ceiling is a real limit. 8 MB for a profile background and 3 MB for a Page cover are rejections, not adjustments. A 1584 × 396 photograph saved as a maximum-quality PNG can pass 8 MB without looking any better than a JPEG a tenth the size. If an upload is refused rather than cropped, size is the first thing to check.

LinkedIn does not publish a safe area

This is the part most size guides get wrong by inventing precision that does not exist. LinkedIn’s Pages documentation says cover images “may be adjusted to fit various screen sizes”, that this can crop them horizontally or vertically, and it advises keeping important content away from the edges. That is the whole of the published guidance. There is no official rectangle, no published pixel margin, and no stated breakpoint list.

Guides that show you a precise safe-area overlay have measured one browser on one day, or copied someone who did. That measurement may well be right, but it is not a specification, and LinkedIn moves its layout without telling anybody. A wrong safe-area rectangle is worse than none, because it gives you a reason to place your name right on the line that is about to move.

Some platforms do state one. YouTube gives a channel banner a safe area for text and logos, which is why an overlay is honest there and dishonest here — though even that figure is published about a canvas YouTube tells you not to build on, as YouTube banner size works through. The difference is not that LinkedIn is careless; it is that LinkedIn has not made the promise, so nobody can hold them to a rectangle.

What you can rely on is the shape of the problem rather than a number:

• The left side of a personal background is where the profile photo lands. On the desktop layout it overlaps the lower-left of the banner. Anything you put there is behind a portrait.
• The bottom edge is eaten first. Narrow viewports crop a wide banner by keeping the center and trimming, so text sitting low is the first thing to go.
• The center is the only region that survives every layout. If one thing must be legible, put it there.

Every platform writes its own version of this, and none of them writes the same amount. LinkedIn gives two exact pixel pairs and no safe area; YouTube thumbnail size gives a recommended resolution, a minimum width and two different file-size ceilings depending on which device uploads; the published Facebook cover photo size is three shapes at once, and for a personal profile it is a minimum width and nothing else. The Twitter header size is the exception that proves the habit worth having: X publishes both the recommendation and a figure for what gets trimmed. The habit that survives all of them is the same: quote the source, write down the date, and re-check before you build a template on it.

Getting an existing image to the right size

If you already have artwork, the job is usually one of three:

It is the right shape but the wrong pixel count. Scale it. Going up from a smaller original will look soft; there is no way around that, and starting from the largest version you have is the only fix. The image resizer does this in your browser without uploading the file.

You are not sure what size it currently is. File properties on both Windows and macOS can report the stored dimensions rather than the displayed ones, which differ for any photo taken with a rotated phone. Image dimensions reports both, so you know which number LinkedIn will actually see.

You have no artwork yet. Build one at the right size instead of forcing something else into it. The LinkedIn banner maker exports the profile figure above — 1584 × 396, or that shape doubled — with a photo or a plain color behind your own wording, and it runs in the browser like everything else here.

It is the right size but too heavy to upload. Reduce the file rather than the picture. Compress image reduces the stored bytes at a quality you choose, and the pixel dimensions do not change — which matters, because the dimensions are what LinkedIn recommends and the bytes are only what it limits.

A short checklist before you upload

1. Decide which banner you are making. Personal profile: 1584 × 396. Page cover: 1512 × 256. They are not interchangeable.
2. Match the shape first and the pixel count second. Shape errors crop; resolution errors only soften.
3. Keep anything that must be read near the center, away from the lower-left of a personal background.
4. Export as JPG or PNG and check the file is under the ceiling — 8 MB for a profile background, 3 MB for a Page cover.
5. Look at the result on a phone as well as a desktop. The crop differs, and the phone is where most of your visitors are.

Sources

• LinkedIn Help, Add or change the background photo on your profile — profile background: 1584 × 396 pixels, JPG or PNG, under 8 MB. Read September 6, 2026.
• LinkedIn Help, Image specifications for your LinkedIn Pages and Career Pages — Page cover: 1512 × 256 pixels, PNG or JPEG, maximum 3 MB. Read September 6, 2026.