Host guide
Airbnb Photo Requirements and Best Practices
Airbnb's photo rules are short: get the size right, shoot landscape, show every room. The listings that win the click apply them well. Here is what matters and why.
What Airbnb requires
These are the hard rules from Airbnb's help centre. Everything else on this page is about doing them well.
| Requirement | In practice |
|---|---|
| At least 1024 × 683 pixels | Airbnb says to upload a bigger photo when in doubt. Phone photos clear the minimum easily. Screenshots and old downloads often don't. |
| Landscape format | Search results show photos in landscape, so vertical shots don't show your space. |
| At least one photo of every room or space | The photo tour sorts photos by room. A space with no photo does not appear in it. |
| Photos must represent the space accurately | The guest should recognise the home on arrival: same layout, furniture and view. |
Airbnb also asks for photos without text overlays, contact details or promotional content. Sources: Airbnb's guide to taking great photos and setting up your photo tour.
Resolution in plain language
1024 × 683 pixels is about one megapixel, which almost any phone from the last decade exceeds. Platforms resize photos for every screen, and a small original turns soft as soon as it is enlarged. A photo 3000 pixels wide looks sharp on a laptop, a phone and a TV.
- Use originals, not screenshots. A screenshot is small and compressed, and the lost detail can't come back.
- Upload your own files instead of importing copies back from a platform. The original on your phone is the better source.
How many photos a listing needs
Airbnb requires a photo of every room. Beyond that, the best listings usually carry twenty to thirty photos. The first few decide the click, because guests choose before they scroll. The rest answer the questions that come next: every bedroom, the bathroom, the amenities, the view.
- Don't repeat a photo. A second shot of the same living room pushes useful photos down.
- Cut what apologises: the dim corner, the cluttered desk, the shot taken mid-repair.
- Keep the set current. Replace photos when the furniture or the season changes.
The order that wins clicks
Your first photo is a thumbnail in a wall of listings. The second has to keep the attention the first one earned.
- Hero shot: your best wide space in its best light, usually the living area or the view.
- The stay: living room, kitchen and main bedroom, so guests picture themselves there early.
- The count: remaining bedrooms and bathrooms. Guests count them.
- Lifestyle: balcony, pool, barbecue, workspace.
- Details: coffee corner, towels, fireplace.
Don't open with a bathroom, a hallway or a dark photo. Airbnb's photo tour lets you drag photos into any order, so set it on purpose instead of keeping the upload sequence.
Photos that clear the bar
Meeting the technical rules is the easy part. The listings that pull ahead have even light, straight lines and one colour standard across every photo. Guests read that as professional without naming it. Two things get you there:
- Shoot well. Daylight, a level phone, a tidy room. The phone photography guide has the routine.
- Enhance the whole set the same way. Superphoto corrects light, colour and tilt in one run, so every photo gets the same standard. You compare each result with its original before you publish.
Enhancement should never change what you are selling. Layout, furniture and view stay exactly as they are. Correcting light and colour keeps you inside Airbnb's accuracy rule.
Common questions
What is the minimum photo size for Airbnb?
1024 × 683 pixels, and Airbnb says bigger is better. Most current phone photos are two to four times larger than that on each side.
How many photos can I upload?
Airbnb accepts far more than you should use. For a whole home, twenty to thirty photos that are all good beats fifty that are not.
Can I use the same photos on Booking.com and my own website?
Yes. Check Booking.com's size rule first, because its minimum is higher than Airbnb's. Superphoto currently exports at 1536 pixels on the long edge, which meets Airbnb's minimum but not Booking.com's.
Do enhanced photos hurt my ranking?
Platforms and guests care about accuracy and quality. Bright, straight, consistent photos perform better and break no rule. Photos that misrepresent the space are a problem however they were made.