The analysis of the 2024 EP election campaign examines the gendered visual representation of national and EU lead candidates of German and Spanish parties on Instagram. Given the increasing relevance of digital platforms like Instagram for political communication, we analyse to what extent parties present their lead candidates on social media and what differences there are in gender representation. For the analysis, we collected 824 Instagram posts from German parties and 458 Instagram posts from Spanish parties during the 2024 EP election campaign using Crowdtangle and manually coded them. Our analysis shows that the parties of both countries have only slightly presented the lead candidates on Instagram. When they are depicted, political content is predominantly not conveyed. The visual representation also shows gender-specific and country differences. Female candidates discuss more policies than the male candidates, but there are also country differences. The dress style of the candidates is rather formal in Germany and more business-casual in Spain. The way the lead candidates are represented on Instagram differs especially in Spain: Spanish female candidates are often portrayed close to citizens in social contexts, while male candidates are more represented by professional election campaign photos. This suggests that the personalisation intended by the lead candidate procedure for the EP election is not picked up by the parties in Germany and Spain. Our analysis shows that the online election campaign is less gender-specific than country-specific.