Photo shot list

What Airbnb asks for

Airbnb's photo guidance is spread over a few pages. Resource 367 asks for at least 5 photos to get started, soft natural lighting, horizontal photos and captions for details the photos don't show. Help article 477 adds that every room or space should have at least one photo so it can appear in your photo tour, that photos should be at least 1024 x 683 pixels, and that photos are sorted into rooms automatically by Airbnb's AI.

This shot list turns those rules into one page you can carry round the house. It gives each room you tick its own entry, with the angle, the best time of day and what to clear away first.

Why the list starts where it does

The first shot is the cover candidate: your living room if you ticked one, otherwise your outdoor space or pool. A research review by BnbCalc describes a study of about 500,000 Airbnb photos which found that what a photo shows matters more than how artistic it is, and that bedroom cover photos were linked to fewer bookings while living rooms did better. It is one study, reported second-hand, but it matches common sense: a guest wants to picture where they will spend their time.

After the cover, the list follows a walk through the home: living space, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, outdoor space, extras, then practical shots like parking and the entrance. Airbnb's hosting article says the title and cover photo are the first things guests notice (resource 12), so the cover gets the most care and the arrival shots go last.

Before you start shooting

Pick a bright day. Open every blind and curtain, turn on every light, and do a full turnover clean as if a guest were arriving in an hour. Then walk round with a bag and remove everything on the Clear away line for each room. It takes longer than the photos, and it matters more.

Use your phone's normal lens rather than the ultra-wide one. Ultra-wide makes rooms look bigger than they are, and a guest who arrives to a smaller room than they saw tends to say so in the accuracy rating.

How to take each shot

Hold the phone landscape, at chest height, and keep it level so walls and door frames stay straight. Shoot from a corner or a doorway so the photo shows how the room fits together, not just one wall. Take three or four of each angle and pick the sharpest later.

The time of day on each entry is a suggestion. Rooms facing the sun look best before it hits the window directly. Outdoor spaces look warmest in late afternoon. Pools look clearest in bright sun. If you can only shoot once, start with the rooms where light changes fastest.

After the shoot

Check every photo is landscape and at least 1024 x 683. Write captions for what the photo can't show, like a sofa bed or blackout blinds. Then compare the photos with your description and amenities. A PriceLabs study reported by ShortTermRentalz found 54% of listings had inconsistencies between photos and written descriptions, and Airbnb's May 2026 insights flag exactly that kind of mismatch (resource 768).

Upload in the order on your list, then open your listing and look at the photo tour to see where Airbnb's AI placed each photo.

Printing and copying

Print prints only the shot list, not the rest of this page, so you can tick shots off with a pen as you go. Copy puts the same list on your clipboard as plain text for your notes app or to send to a photographer. Nothing is stored or sent anywhere.