Do you have to disclose virtually staged listing photos?

Virtual staging puts furniture into photos of an empty room. It is cheap, it is common, and since January 1, 2026 it has come with a disclosure rule in California. This guide reads that rule, the MLS and professional rules we could verify, and the one place the European Commission has mentioned staging by example. It is general information, not legal advice, and we checked every source on October 21, 2026.

The statute does not care how the picture was altered. It covers photo editing software and artificial intelligence alike, so it is a listing rule, not an AI rule. For the wider map of disclosure laws, start from our AI disclosure laws hub and the United States page.

What California AB 723 requires

AB 723 added section 10140.8 to the Business and Professions Code. The code note on the official legislative site reads "Added by Stats. 2025, Ch. 497, Sec. 1. (AB 723) Effective January 1, 2026." The duty is in subdivision (a)(1): a real estate broker or salesperson, "or person acting on their behalf", who includes a digitally altered image in an advertisement or other promotional material "for the sale of real property" must include "a statement disclosing that the image has been altered and a link to a publicly accessible internet website, URL, or QR code that includes, and clearly identifies, the original, unaltered image."

The statement "shall be reasonably conspicuous and located on or adjacent to the image and shall include language indicating that the unaltered images can be accessed on the linked internet website, URL, or QR code." Subdivision (a)(2) adds that on a website the licensee controls, they must include the unaltered version of the images in the posting, or link to a page that includes and clearly identifies the originals.

A "digitally altered image" is one "created by or at the direction of the real estate broker or salesperson, or person acting on their behalf" and altered "through the use of photo editing software or artificial intelligence to add, remove, or change elements in the image". The statute lists fixtures, furniture, appliances, flooring, walls, paint color, hardscape, landscape, facade, floor plans, and elements outside of or visible from the property, such as streetlights, utility poles, views through windows and neighboring properties. Subdivision (b)(2) excludes an image where "only lighting, sharpening, white balance, color correction, angle, straightening, cropping, exposure, or other common photo editing adjustments are made that do not change the representation of the real property."

The penalty

Section 10140.8 sits in Division 4 of the Business and Professions Code, the Real Estate Law, and states no penalty of its own. Section 10185 applies to the whole division: any person "who willfully violates or knowingly participates in the violation of this division shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by a fine and imprisonment." Willfulness is part of the test. Some vendor posts quote other amounts; none of them matches the code text we read. We found no Department of Real Estate bulletin or enforcement action on AB 723, so check the department's own site for guidance.

What the statute leaves open

• Rentals. The text says "the sale of real property". It does not mention leases.
• Sellers who are not licensees. The duty is on "a real estate broker or salesperson, or person acting on their behalf". A photographer or staging vendor working for a licensee may be acting on their behalf; a seller listing alone is not named. We found nothing that settles it.
• Wording. The statute prescribes none. It asks for a statement that the image has been altered and for language pointing to the originals.
• "Reasonably conspicuous." We found no court decision or agency guidance that explains it.

What MLS rules and professional codes say

Beyond the statute, listing rules decide what an agent can upload. They differ by MLS and they change, so read your own. The three below are the ones we could read and verify. Vendor guides describe rules at other boards that we could not confirm, so we do not repeat them.

The CRMLS guidance FAQ also says subscribers may not add or remove real parts of the property, and gives wall color, flooring, cabinets and landscaping as examples. That matches the NorthstarMLS draft. In our reading, staging that stays with furniture and decor is the kind every source above treats most comfortably.

The EU view: the Commission's furnished-apartment example

The European Commission's EU icons page (last updated October 13, 2026) offers free icons for labeling AI content. It says the "Partially AI-Modified" icon is for when "pre-existing, human-made content was partially modified with AI turning it into a deepfake". Its two use cases are a swapped face in a photograph and "Authentic photographs of an empty apartment is furnished using AI". That is the Commission itself naming AI virtual staging as a case for the icon. The same page says the icons are optional and that their use "does not establish legal compliance by itself."

The Guidelines on Article 50 (C(2026) 5054 final, July 20, 2026) are quieter. They are non-binding, as paragraph 5 says, and they do not decide staging. Paragraph 31 lists room staging among examples of AI-assisted product visualization, but only to say such systems do not interact directly with people under Article 50(1). The deep fake test in paragraphs 113 to 116 is what would apply. It asks whether realistic AI-generated or manipulated content, including of buildings and places, "would falsely appear to a person to be authentic or truthful", judged against the foreseeable audience. Paragraph 116 gives examples on both sides: an AI-generated product image that makes the product look "more appealing or with improved quality than in real life" is a deep fake, while "adjustments or replacements of backgrounds for clearly aesthetic purposes" and "compositions and arrangements of existing products" are likely minor.

Furniture added to a room is neither of those. It changes how the property looks without changing the property. Nobody has ruled on it, and the Commission's page is a use case, not a decision. Article 50 binds deployers in the EU and, under paragraph 13, deployers elsewhere who foresee that their output will be used in the Union, so a California listing aimed at California buyers is not its target. A listing marketed to EU buyers could be.

A practical disclosure for listing photos

These steps are our suggestions, built from the statute and the sources above. They are not a legal standard, and following them does not make a listing compliant with anything.

1. Keep every original and publish it at an address that stays up for the life of the listing and after. The statute asks for a "publicly accessible" page.
2. Put the statement in real text on or beside each altered image, not drawn into the pixels. For example: "Virtually staged: furniture added digitally. Unaltered photos: example.com/originals/123-main-st". It says the image was altered and says where the originals are, which is what the statute asks for.
3. Give a QR code a text twin. A QR code image needs alt text, and a visible URL beside it helps people who cannot or do not scan. The statute accepts a link, a URL or a QR code, so the plain link is enough on its own.
4. Show the original next to the edit where the MLS allows it. CRMLS asks for the original "immediately before or after".
5. Stay with furniture and decor. The CRMLS FAQ and the NorthstarMLS draft both rule out changing permanent or real features of the property.
6. Write alt text for what each photo shows. The staged room gets a description of the staged room. See alt text for AI-generated images and alt text for product images.
7. Treat file metadata as a bonus. AB 723 does not mention it. You can declare an AI edit in the file, and our guide to AI image metadata shows how and why it often does not survive a listing platform.

Our free accessible AI label generator writes the statement and its markup, with a QR code's text equivalent included. For the label itself, our guide to accessible AI labels covers contrast, screen readers and the pixels problem.

What a check can and cannot tell you

A tool can find whether label-style text such as "virtually staged" or "digitally altered" appears in the alt text, a caption or the text next to a listing image. It cannot tell whether a photo was altered, whether the linked picture is really the unaltered original, or whether a statement is conspicuous enough. Our AI image metadata checker reads what a file declares, and a file that declares nothing proves nothing. No automated check says a listing meets AB 723.