diff --git a/icoconvert.py b/icoconvert.py
index 70b63f1..ee51c21 100644
--- a/icoconvert.py
+++ b/icoconvert.py
@@ -127,6 +127,7 @@ def load_image(filename):
     (new_w, new_h) = imagetools.fit_into_bounds(w, h, 256, 256, only_shrink=True)
     image = image.resize((new_w, new_h), resample=PIL.Image.ANTIALIAS)
     image = image.convert('RGBA')
+    image = imagetools.pad_to_square(image)
     return image
 
 def build_ico_header_blob(image_count):