What size should an Airbnb cover photo be?

At least 1024 x 683 pixels, in landscape, which is the minimum Airbnb publishes for every listing photo. Upload the largest file you have: Airbnb says a bigger photo is better, and the cover is scaled to fill the search card on every screen size.

How do I change my Airbnb cover photo?

In the listing editor, open Photos, select the photo you want and choose "Make cover photo". You can also drag to reorder the first five photos of the photo tour. Airbnb says changes can take up to 30 minutes to appear in search.

Should the cover be the bedroom or the living room?

The living space, unless the bedroom is the feature of the place (a view behind the bed, a loft, a cabin). Guests assume there is a bed; they tap on where they picture themselves spending the evening.

Can I edit the cover photo to make it brighter?

Yes. Correcting exposure, colour, white balance and straight lines is normal photo editing and keeps the room as it is. What Airbnb requires is that the photo accurately represents the space, so do not add, remove or hide anything in it.

How to choose your Airbnb cover photo (and the five after it)

Guests decide on the cover in the search grid, before they open your listing. Here is how to pick it, with the rules Airbnb publishes and the ones guests enforce.

In Airbnb search results your listing is one photo in a grid of many. Airbnb itself puts it plainly in its help center: make sure the first one is amazing, that is the large one that shows up in search. Everything else about your listing (the title, the price, the reviews) is read after that first look, if it is read at all. So the cover is not the prettiest photo you have. It is the photo that makes a stranger stop scrolling and tap.

What Airbnb lets you control

Three facts from the Airbnb photo tour help article, so you know what is in your hands. First, any photo can become the cover: open the listing editor, select a photo and choose "Make cover photo". Second, you can reorder the first five photos of the photo tour by dragging them; those five are the grid guests see at the top of your listing page. Third, changes can take up to 30 minutes to appear, so do not panic if search still shows the old cover for a while. One thing the article does not say: since Airbnb’s 2026 Summer Release, hosts have reported search showing one of their first five photos as the cover instead of the one they chose, and Airbnb support has acknowledged it without explaining how the choice is made. So pick the cover with care, and make the other four strong enough to stand in for it.

Resolution: Airbnb asks for at least 1024 x 683 pixels and adds that a bigger photo is better. Export your cover at the largest size your phone or camera gives you, in landscape. A small cover is scaled up in search and looks soft next to the neighbours.

The three covers that work

The room guests will live in, lit. For most apartments that is the living room or the open kitchen and living area, photographed from a corner or a doorway so the whole space reads at once, with every lamp on and the curtains open.
The one feature nobody else nearby has. A pool, a terrace with a real view, a fireplace, a bathtub by a window, a cabin in trees. If your listing has a reason to exist, that reason is the cover.
The bedroom, only when it is the feature. A bed with a window view behind it, or a loft under a sloping roof, can win. A plain bed against a plain wall cannot.

When in doubt, open the search results for your own area, on your phone, and look at your listing as a guest would. If your cover looks like three others on the screen, it is not doing its job.

What to keep out of the cover slot

The bathroom. Even a beautiful one. Guests assume there is a bathroom; they want to see where they will spend their evening.
Close-ups of decor, food, towels or a welcome basket. They mean nothing in a grid of houses.
A view with no property in it. A sunset photo sells the region, not your place.
Evening and night shots as the cover. They look dramatic on a large screen and like a dark rectangle in a search grid.
Anything with text, a logo or a border on it. Vrbo rejects overlays outright and on Airbnb they simply look like an ad.
A photo of a room that no longer looks like that. Airbnb requires photos to accurately represent the space, and the cover is the first thing a guest compares with reality at check-in.

One more test before you commit to a cover: look at it at the size it will actually be seen. On a phone the search card is about the width of your thumb; a wide living room with a tiny sofa in the distance turns into beige nothing, while a tighter frame of the same sofa, the window and a lamp still reads as a room. Shrink the candidate to a thumbnail on your screen. If you cannot tell what the room is in one second, neither can a guest.

The five after the cover

The cover gets the tap; the next five photos get the booking. On the listing page they sit in a grid right under the cover, and most guests look at those six before they scroll to anything else. Use them to answer, in order, the questions a guest has: where do I sleep, where do I sit, where do I cook, where do I wash, and what is outside.

Cover: the living space or the feature.
Main bedroom, bed made, from the doorway.
Kitchen or dining, counters clear.
Bathroom, shower screen clean, toilet lid down.
Outdoor space, view or building exterior, in daylight.
A second angle of whatever the listing is really about: the second bedroom for families, the desk for remote workers, the terrace again at a different hour.

Do not put two photos of the same room in the first six, and do not put the floor plan there either. Both are useful further down.

When your best room is your darkest photo

This is the usual problem. The living room is the right cover, but the only photo of it was taken on a grey afternoon with the lights off and it looks smaller and colder than it is. You have two honest options. Reshoot it at the right hour: the hour after sunrise if the room faces east, the hour before sunset if it faces west, every lamp on, flash off. Or correct the photo you have: exposure, white balance, straight verticals and the view through the window are editing, not misrepresentation, and the room stays exactly as it is. That correction is what LiftMyStay does with the photos already on your listing, and it shows you your own cover before and after before you pay anything.