Fix your Airbnb photos in one click.
Airbnb photo requirements are 1024 x 683 px minimum, 3:2 landscape, under 30 MB. Drop your photos in to see which ones fail, fix them instantly, then turn the set into a walkthrough video.
- Checks every photo against the real spec
- One click crops and resizes what fails
- Turns the set into a room-by-room video prompt
Free. No signup. Your photos never leave your device.
Airbnb photo size and dimensions
1024 x 683
Minimum size
3:2
Aspect ratio
30 MB
Max file size
5 min, 20-30+
Photos
| Minimum resolution | 1024 x 683 px |
|---|---|
| Recommended | 1920 x 1080 px or larger |
| Aspect ratio | 3:2 |
| Orientation | Landscape |
| Max file size | 30 MB per photo |
| Formats | JPEG |
| Minimum photos | 5 |
| Recommended photos | 20-30+ |
Anything that is not 3:2 gets centre-cropped to 3:2. Portrait photos lose the most, and the crop is applied to your cover image too.
Airbnb runs one image pipeline for the search feed, the map card and the listing hero, which is why everything is standardised to a 3:2 landscape frame. Upload a square or a 4:3 and the platform centre-crops it to 3:2, so whatever sits near the top or bottom edge is the first thing you lose.
Verified August 2026. Airbnb can change these, so re-check before a big upload.
Two prompts for any listing photo
Use the first prompt to improve your images: it fixes the exposure, verticals and colour without touching the property itself. If you want a walkthrough video instead, use the other prompt. Both work on any single photo and are reusable across every listing you own.
Improve any listing photo
Corrections only, the ones a photographer would make: recover the blown-out windows, straighten the verticals, open up the daylight. It is told explicitly not to add, remove or restage anything, so the photo still shows the property as it really is.
Improve the attached property listing photograph as a professional real estate photographer would, using corrections only. Recover the exposure so the view through every window is visible instead of blown out to white, while keeping the interior naturally bright. Lift the shadows gently, keep the highlights under control, and avoid an over-processed HDR look. Straighten the image so vertical lines are truly vertical and the horizon is level, correcting any lens distortion or keystoning. Remove any wide-angle stretching at the edges so the room's proportions read accurately. Set a clean, neutral white balance, then leave a slight natural warmth. Keep any lamps that are already on looking warm and inviting. Make the whites of bedding and tiles actually white rather than yellow or blue. Crop to a 3:2 landscape frame, keeping the main subject of the room away from all four edges. CRITICAL: change nothing about the property itself. Do not add, remove, move, replace or restage any furniture, decor, appliance or fixture. Do not tidy, declutter, repaint, re-floor or renovate. Do not widen the room or make the space look larger than it is. Do not add people, pets, plants, fire in a fireplace, or a different view through the windows. The result must be an honest photograph of this exact room, only better exposed and better corrected. Photoreal, no illustration, no text, no watermark.
Turn any listing photo into a walkthrough clip
The video version. It holds the room exactly as photographed, moves the camera forward only so nothing outside the frame is invented, and applies the daylight look 19 of the 51 creators shoot for.
Animate the attached listing photograph into one continuous, slow forward push into the room, as if walking in. The camera only ever moves deeper into the frame, so the shot crops inward and never reveals anything beyond the edges of the photo. No pan, no tilt, no orbit, no pull-back. Keep the property exactly as photographed: every wall, window frame, door, cabinet line, countertop and floor plank stays straight, rigid and dimensionally accurate, and no furniture, fixture or finish is added, removed, resized or restyled. Never widen the room or exaggerate its size. Keep the view through the windows exactly as it appears. Bright natural daylight, curtains open, warm and clean. Any lamps already visible in the photo stay lit and glowing. The only movement besides the camera is what the photo already implies: sheer curtains drifting, dust in a light beam, water rippling. No people, no pets, no vehicles entering frame. No text, captions, watermarks or overlays. Photoreal interior cinematography, natural colour, level horizon, no lens distortion, no camera shake. Single continuous take, no cuts. 16:9, 8 seconds.
Three different specs, one name
Searching for airbnb photo requirements returns three unrelated answers, which is why so much of the advice out there contradicts itself. The table above is for a stay listing. These are the others.
Airbnb Experience photos
800 x 1200 px minimum, vertical, up to 10 MB
Completely different rules from a stay listing. Experiences are shown in a portrait frame, so a landscape photo is the wrong shape here, and the file ceiling is a third of the listing limit. This is the single most common mix-up, because both are called Airbnb photo requirements.
Profile photo
No published pixel minimum; square crop
Required to create an account at all, and hosts can additionally require guests to show one before booking. It is cropped to a circle in most places it appears, so keep the face centred and away from the edges.
The compression threshold
Under 1440 x 960 and under 1024 KB
Photos below both of those are served as uploaded rather than re-compressed. Above them Airbnb re-encodes, which is fine and usually invisible, but it is why a heavily edited photo can look slightly softer on the listing than on your machine.
What size should the Airbnb cover photo be?
The cover photo has no separate size of its own: it uses the same 3:2 landscape frame as everything else, so 1920 x 1280 exported as JPEG is the safe target. What changes is how hard it works. It is the only photo most guests ever see, appearing in search results, on the map card and as the listing hero, and each of those crops slightly differently around the same 3:2 centre. Keep the subject away from all four edges, pick the widest room or the exterior rather than a detail shot, and never use a portrait photo, because the centre-crop will cut the ceiling and floor out of it.
Airbnb vs Vrbo vs Booking.com
If you list the same property in more than one place, the frames do not match. Export to the strictest of the three and every platform is satisfied.
| Platform | Minimum | Ideal | Aspect | Max file | Photos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb | 1024 x 683 | 1920 x 1080+ | 3:2 | 30 MB | 5 min, 20-30+ ideal |
| Vrbo | 1024 x 683 | 3840 x 2160 | 16:9 or 3:2 | 20 MB | 6 min, 25+ ideal |
| Booking.com | 2048 x 1080 | 4000 x 3000 | 4:3, shown 16:9 | 19 MB | 24+ ideal |
Seven things creators agree on
Mined from 51 host and photographer videos, just under 11 hours, pulled across three search angles and ranked by how many separate creators said the same thing.
20
videos
Your first photo does almost all the work
It is the only image most guests see, appearing in search, on the map card and as the hero. More creators raised this than any other point, by a distance.
19
videos
Shoot in daylight with the curtains open
Daylight is flattering and free. Almost every creator shoots midday with blinds fully open rather than relying on the ceiling light.
18
videos
Use a tripod
Not for shake, but for consistency: it keeps the camera at one height and the verticals straight across every room, which is what makes a set look professional.
14
videos
Turn the phone sideways
The frame is landscape. A vertical photo gets centre-cropped and loses a third of its height.
12
videos
Stage the bed properly
The bed is the subject of the bedroom shot. Creases read badly at listing size, so it is the one bit of styling worth real time.
11
videos
Declutter before you shoot, not after
Removing cables, toiletries and personal photos does more for the shot than any edit, and no amount of editing fixes a cluttered frame.
11
videos
Do not go ultra-wide
0.5x makes a small room look enormous and sets up a bad first review when the guest walks in. Several creators call it the fastest way to get a complaint.
Where they split: Lights on or lights off?
Airbnb's own photoshoot prep guide is explicit: turn off all lamps and overhead lights before the shoot, so the daylight does the work and you avoid mixed colour temperatures.
Only 2 of the 51 creators do that. 8 explicitly shoot with the lamps ON, arguing that a warm pool of light in frame is what makes a room look lived-in rather than like an empty rental.
Our read: Both are right about different things. Lights off gives you clean, consistent colour and is the safer default if you are editing a whole set. Lights on gives you warmth, and it is why twilight exteriors and evening living-room shots convert. If you only shoot one version, follow Airbnb and shoot lights off, then take one lamps-on frame of the main living space as your cover candidate.
What a complete listing needs
In the order a guest scrolls them. This is also the order that makes a walkthrough video work, because it reads as a walk through the property rather than a set of unrelated rooms.
- 1
Exterior / front
Establishes the property. This is usually the cover photo.
- 2
Entry or hallway
Orients the guest before they see rooms in isolation.
- 3
Living room
Shoot from a corner so the room reads as its full size.
- 4
Kitchen
Along the counter, not head-on at a cabinet.
- 5
Dining area
Include the seating count guests are paying for.
- 6
Each bedroom
One per bedroom, and say which is which in the caption.
- 7
Each bathroom
The most-skipped shot and the most-asked question.
- 8
Outdoor space
Balcony, garden, pool. Shoot in the best light of the day.
- 9
Amenity close-ups
Coffee machine, workspace, log burner. The booking-tippers.
Six mistakes that cost bookings
Uploading portrait photos
A phone held vertically produces a 3:4 frame. Airbnb centre-crops that to 3:2, taking roughly a third of the height away.
Fix: Turn the phone sideways. If the photo already exists, crop it to 3:2 yourself so you choose what survives.
Shooting head-on at a wall
Standing square to one wall flattens the room and makes it look smaller than it is.
Fix: Shoot from a corner, with the camera at roughly chest height, so two walls are visible.
Letting the windows blow out
Exposing for the room turns every window into a white rectangle and throws away the view guests are paying for.
Fix: Expose for the window, then lift the shadows afterwards. A photo can recover a bright window; a video cannot.
Using an ultra-wide lens
Ultra-wide makes a small room look enormous, and it is the single most common cause of a bad first review.
Fix: Stay near a normal focal length. If the room only looks good at 0.5x, the photo is misrepresenting it.
Too few photos
Five gets the listing live but leaves guests guessing, and the rooms they cannot see are the ones they message you about.
Fix: Cover every room plus the outdoor space. Twenty to thirty is normal for a well-performing listing.
A random photo order
Guests scroll in sequence. Jumping between the bathroom, the exterior and a bedroom reads as chaotic.
Fix: Order them as a walk through the property. That order is also what makes a walkthrough video work.
Why won't Airbnb let me upload a photo?
The upload fails or spins forever
Cause: Almost always file size or format. HEIC straight off an iPhone is the usual culprit, and anything over 30 MB will not go through.
Fix: Export as JPEG and keep it under 30 MB. On iPhone, Settings, Camera, Formats, Most Compatible saves as JPEG from then on.
The photo uploads but looks cropped
Cause: It was not 3:2. Airbnb centre-crops everything to that frame, so the top and bottom go first.
Fix: Crop to 3:2 before uploading so you choose what stays in frame. The checker on this page does it for you.
The photo looks soft or washed out on the listing
Cause: Re-compression. Anything above 1440 x 960 or 1024 KB is re-encoded on upload.
Fix: Export a clean JPEG at around quality 80 rather than pushing contrast and sharpening hard. Over-processed files degrade worst.
The wrong photo is showing as the cover
Cause: The cover is the first photo in your list, not a separately chosen image.
Fix: Reorder the photos so your best exterior or widest room sits first.
How to export at the right size
Lightroom
Crop to 3:2, then Export with Resize to Long Edge 1920 px, JPEG, quality 80.
Apple Photos
Crop, choose the 3:2 aspect, then File, Export, and pick JPEG at Full Size.
Canva
Start a 1920 x 1280 px design, drop the photo in to fill the frame, then Share, Download, JPG.
Straight off a phone
Shoot horizontally. Modern phone photos already clear the minimum, so you only need the 3:2 crop.
Turn the same photos into a walkthrough
Once the photos pass the spec check, the tool at the top of this page reads them and writes one video prompt per room, describing what is actually in each shot. You take each prompt into an AI video model with its matching photo and get a slow, moving walkthrough of the property without filming anything or hiring anyone.
The order matters as much as it does for the photo set. Because the prompts follow your walking order, the clips cut together into a tour rather than a slideshow.
Frequently asked questions
What size should Airbnb photos be?+
At least 1024 x 683 pixels, which is Airbnb's minimum. Aim for 1920 x 1080 or larger so the photo still looks sharp in the listing hero on a big screen. The shape matters as much as the size: Airbnb uses a 3:2 landscape frame everywhere, so a 3:2 photo is shown as you framed it while anything else is cropped.
What aspect ratio does Airbnb use?+
3:2, landscape. The search feed, the map card and the listing hero all pull from the same image pipeline, so a single 3:2 frame is what the platform standardises on. Upload a 4:3, a square or a portrait shot and it is centre-cropped to 3:2, which quietly removes whatever was at the top and bottom of your frame.
What is the maximum file size for an Airbnb photo?+
30MB per photo. In practice you want to be well under that: very large files slow the listing down without looking any better, and Airbnb re-compresses them anyway. Exporting JPEG at around 1920 x 1280 gives you a file that is a fraction of the limit and still above the minimum resolution.
How many photos should an Airbnb listing have?+
Five is the minimum Airbnb will accept. Most well-performing listings run 20 to 30 or more, covering every room plus the exterior, the kitchen, each bathroom and any outdoor space. The order matters as much as the count: guests scroll in sequence, so a route that walks through the property reads better than a set of unrelated hero shots.
Can I turn my Airbnb photos into a video?+
Yes, and that is what the second half of this page does. Once your photos pass the size check, the tool orders them into a walkthrough and writes a prompt for each clip, describing the actual rooms in your photos. You take those into an AI video model with the matching photo and get a moving walkthrough of the property without filming anything.