Houfy Photo Guidelines

These guidelines cover every photograph you put on Houfy — the photographs on your listing, and the photograph on your profile. They form part of our Terms of Service, and they sit alongside our Community Standards, Listing & Platform Guidelines and Fair Housing Guidelines.

Photographs you may upload

Only upload photographs you have the right to use. That means photographs you took, or that you have the owner's permission to use on Houfy. Almost every photograph is protected by copyright the moment it is taken, whether or not it carries a copyright notice — so the absence of a © symbol does not mean a photograph is free to use.

If you paid a photographer, check what your agreement says: the photographer often keeps the copyright even though you commissioned and paid for the work, and a licence for your own website does not automatically cover Houfy.

Do not copy photographs from another Houfy listing, from Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, a property manager's site, or anywhere else. If you take over a property from a previous host or manager, their photographs do not come with it.

Our Copyright Policy explains how to report photographs of yours being used without permission, and how to respond if someone reports yours.

Photographs of other people

If someone else is identifiable in a photograph you upload, you need their permission — that includes previous guests, neighbours, passers-by and anyone working at the property. For children, you need the permission of a parent or guardian, and we would rather you did not include them at all. Do not crop a photograph out of a group picture so that other people are still visible. If someone asks us to remove a photograph they appear in, we will normally remove it.

What photographs must not contain

• Illegal or inappropriate content, or photographs of illegal activity

• Anything that infringes copyright or a trademark

• Pornography or sexual content

• Incitement of violence, or the promotion of hate

• Weapons. Firearms at a property must be stored securely and out of sight, and disclosed before booking — see our Community Standards

• Anything that invades someone's privacy

No contact details. No phone numbers, email addresses, website addresses, social media handles, booking links or QR codes — whether in the image itself, in a watermark, on a sign in the picture, or in the file name. A discreet watermark identifying you or your photographer is fine. Photographs are covered by the same rule as listing text: see our Listing & Platform Guidelines.

Nothing that would help someone get in. Do not photograph keys, lockboxes or their codes, alarm panels and keypads, security camera positions, or windows and doors that do not lock. Take care with house numbers, street signs and number plates — including your neighbours'.

Edited and AI-generated images

You can adjust brightness, colour, straightening and cropping, and you can run a photograph through our photo improvement tool if you choose to. What you cannot do is change what the property is like. Do not add, remove or alter features — furniture, views, buildings, damage, or anything else a guest would notice on arrival. You are responsible for every photograph on your listing, including one you asked us to improve: check the result before you publish it. A photograph edited so that the property looks materially different from what a guest will find is inaccurate, whatever tool made it.

Do not use an AI-generated or synthetic image of a face as your profile photograph. It must be a real photograph of you. An image generated by a model, however realistic, is not — and using one defeats the only purpose the photograph has.

Listing photographs

Photographs must show the property you are letting. Every photograph must be of the actual property a guest will stay in — not a similar unit, not a show home, not a previous property, not a rendering. If a photograph is of a shared or nearby amenity — a pool, a beach, a gym, a view — say so in the caption. If the property has changed since the photographs were taken, update them. Photographs that show a different property, or that make the property look materially different from what a guest will find, may be removed and may lead to action against the listing.

Quality. Photographs should be clear and well lit. Photographs that are very blurry, noisy, rotated or too dark may be removed. Horizontal photographs (landscape style) display best. Vertical photographs (portrait style) are accepted, but they do not take full advantage of the space provided.

Size. We recommend at least 1024 x 683 pixels at 96 dpi. Scaling a small image up does not add detail — the resolution drops and the image looks more pixelated.

Profile photographs

A profile photograph is optional. You do not have to upload one. Most hosts do, because guests book more readily from someone they can see. If you do upload one, these rules apply to it.

It must be a photograph of you. Not a stock image, not a photograph of someone else, not a picture of a person you found online. Using someone else's photograph to represent yourself is impersonation, and we act on it under our Community Standards rather than by simply removing the image.

Your face must be visible and identifiable. The photograph should show your face clearly enough that a guest meeting you would recognise you. Nothing should obscure your face — avoid sunglasses, and avoid anything else that hides your features. Head coverings worn for religious, cultural or medical reasons are fine, as long as your face is visible.

On a personal account, a landscape, a photograph of a pet, a picture of text, or a cartoon or avatar does not help anyone recognise you, and may be removed.

Company and management accounts. If your account is held in the name of a company rather than a person, you may use the company's logo as the profile image instead of a photograph. Everything else on this page still applies: the image must be yours to use, must not contain contact details, and must not mislead anyone about who they are dealing with. Where a company account is used by an individual manager, we may ask that the manager's name and photograph appear on the listing.

For advice on taking a good profile photograph — lighting, background, angle — see How to take a good profile photo. That page is guidance, not a rule.

What we do with your photographs

You keep ownership of every photograph you upload. By uploading it you give us permission to display and promote it as part of your listing or your profile — on Houfy, in search results, and through the partners and distribution channels we use to promote listings, which can include search engines and travel sites. We may resize or reformat a photograph so that it displays properly; we will not change what it shows. The permission lasts while the photograph is on Houfy — delete it, or close your account, and it ends. See section 9 of our Terms of Service.

If we remove a photograph

We may remove photographs that break these guidelines, our Terms of Service, our Listing & Platform Guidelines or our Copyright Policy. Where the breach is serious or repeated, we may also restrict or close the account. We will tell you which photograph we removed and why. You can upload a replacement straight away, and you may appeal within 30 days by replying to that notice.

Bear in mind that removing a listing's photographs can affect bookings you already have: a listing with no photographs is hard for a guest to trust and may not appear in search results. If you receive a notice, replace the photographs promptly.

Reporting a photograph. If a photograph on Houfy is yours and someone else has used it, follow our Copyright Policy. For anything else — a photograph that shows you or your property without your permission, or that breaks these guidelines — use the report option on the listing or profile, or write to info@houfy.com.

Changes

We update these Guidelines as the platform changes, and change the date at the top.